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FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 



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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TOKONTO 



FUNDAMENTALS OF 
CHILD STUDY 

A DISCUSSION OF INSTINCTS AND OTHER 

FACTORS IN HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 

WITH PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 



EDWIN A. KIRKPATRICK, B.S., M.Ph. 

AUTHOR OF '< INDUCTIVE PSYCHOLOGY" 



NEW EDITION, REVISED 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1917 

All rlghti reserved 






Copyright, 1903, 1907, 1917, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published August, 1917. 



m 16 1917 



Nottoooti 3|«B« 

J. 8. Gushing Co. — Berwick <fe Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



'CI.A473129 



TO MY LAMENTED FRIEND 

LOUIS H. GALBREATH 

WHOSE GENEROUS AND GENIAL PERSONALITY HAS GLADDENED 
AND ENNOBLED MANY LIVES, AND WHOSE BROAD VIEWS, 
STIMULATING PRESENCE, AND SUGGESTIVE CONVER- 
SATIONS HAVE OFTEN INSPIRED AND DIRECTED 
MY THOUGHT AND WORK AS AN INDIVIDUAL 
AND AN EDUCATOR, THIS BOOK IS 
AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 



PREFACE 

This book is an attempt to present, in an organized form, an 
outline of the new science of child study for investigators, stu- 
dents, teachers, and parents. It is the fruit of fourteen years' 
experience in studying and teaching child study, and of seven 
years' experience as a father. Most of the work has been pre- 
sented successfully, in nearly its present form, to normal students. 

The great task of the author has been to decide what to leave 
out of the book. Many paragraphs might easily have been 
expanded into chapters. It was the original intention to sum- 
marize all the principal child study investigations that have been 
made. Lack of space and the fact that much of the literature 
of child study is in the nature of preliminary studies likely to be 
superseded by later investigations, caused this plan to be aban- 
doned; hence only a few specific facts and figures are quoted, 
while prominence is given to the foundations of child study in 
other sciences, and to the more general, permanent, and practical 
truths thus far revealed by students of children. 

The treatment of each topic is, in a way, complete in itself, 
though related to every other and intended to be worked out 
more completely by reading, observation, experiment, and dis- 
cussion, so far as time will permit. To aid readers and students 
in assimilating and supplementing the text, exercises and refer- 
ences are given at the close of each chapter. In class work the 
recitation periods may well be taken up largely in discussions of 
these exercises and in reports of reading, though if preferred they 
may be ignored and the text alone studied and recited. It is 
hoped that the plan of the book will adapt itself to the use of 
intelligent parents and to classes in normal schools and univer- 

vii 



viii PREFACE 

sities, with varying preparation and amount of time to devote 
to the subject. Many parents will prefer to begin with chapter 
five and to omit chapter fourteen and perhaps some of the chap- 
ters that follow. 

Acknowledgments are due to many earnest students of chil- 
dren, especially to G. Stanley Hall, the father of all child study 
in America ; to J. Mark Baldwin, who has given us a theory of 
organic development ; to Lloyd Morgan, who has described in- 
stincts and habits with such acuteness and clearness ; and to Earl 
Barnes, who has so intelligently studied the effects of social 
influences upon children ; also to Mr. J. F. Reigart and to my 
wife for assisting with the proofs, and to my friend Rev. W. F. 

Greenman for suggestions. 

E. A. K. 

FiTCHBURG Normal School, 
July, 1903. 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 

The very kind reception given the first edition of this book 
by instructors in normal schools and universities, and by parents 
and teachers in this and other countries, has been very gratify- 
ing to the author, who had scarcely dared hope that he could 
make the book so acceptable to so many different classes of 
persons. 

This new edition has given the opportunity to correct a number 
of errors in the references at the close of each chapter, to add 
the names of a few new books to the list at the beginning, and 
also to improve a few sentences and paragraphs. 

It has not been thought best to make any radical revision at 
the present time. This will probably be done a few years later. 
In the meantime, the author will be glad to receive suggestions 
from those who have used the book regarding corrections, omis- 
sions, or additions that it is thought would increase its usefulness. 

E. A. K. 

FiTCHBiiRG Normal School, 
May, 1907. 



PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION 

In the thirteen years since this book was first printed great 
progress has been made in the details of the sciences related to 
the development and training of children but its general outlines 
and principles have not been greatly modified. The advice of 
many persons who have used the book as a text in colleges and 
normal schools or as a guide to study clubs has been sought and 
kindly given. The author has profited greatly by the suggestions 
he has received and he here publicly extends thanks to all who 
have made suggestions. He could not follow all of them without 
greatly enlarging the book or making it into one of several special 
purpose books. Judging from the steadily increasing use made 
of the former edition by study clubs and general readers as well 
as by students in universities, colleges, and normal schools it 
seemed best to retain the characteristics of a moderate sized 
general purpose book. 

One of the most important changes made is in additions to 
the bibliography. Many of the older references are, however, 
retained as often being more intelligible to beginning students 
than the more technically scientific discussions of recent times. 
The other most important addition is a chapter on Modifica- 
tions of Native Endowments which shows in more detail 
than formerly the principles governing learning processes. In 
connection with this change the chapter on Heredity is enlarged 
and transposed and several topics in other chapters are omitted. 
The chapters on Abnormalities and on Classification of In- 
stincts have been omitted, though much of their material will 
be found elsewhere, while chapter seven has been divided. 



xii PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION 

A few persons may be disappointed that more of the many 
tables obtained from recent investigations are not quoted as 
definite indications of truths and as standards of comparison. 
The author, however, feels that the quantitive results thus far 
obtained are still as a rule only partial and tentative. Moreover, 
they are likely to be misleading if not accompanied by details 
of method, the giving of which, space does not permit. Refer- 
ences are given to such investigations and all students should, if 
possible, make a study of one or more of them. It is hoped that 
the plan of the new edition will continue to be acceptable to the 
classes of persons who have hitherto found the book useful. 

E. A. K. 

Nov. 1916. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Child Study Literature xxi 

CHAPTER I 

NATURE, SCOPE, AND PROBLEMS OF CHILD STUDY 

Difference between Children and Adults i 

Origin of Child Study .2 

Period covered by Child Study 2 

Significance of Infancy 3 

Advantages of a Long Infancy 4 

Human Infancy and Plasticity 5 

Inner and Outer Factors in Development 7 

The Problem to be solved 8 

GeneraUty of Inner Forces of Development 10 

Exercises for Students . . .11 

Suggestions for Reading 11 

CHAPTER II 

LESS GENERAL NATIVE ENDOWMENTS OR HEREDITY 

General Truths of Heredity 15 

General Theory of Heredity 17 

Mendelism 20 

Eugenics 23 

Social Heredity 27 

Exercises for Students 30 

Suggestions for Reading 30 

CHAPTER III 

PHYSICAL GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 

General Phenomena of Growth 32 

General Truths regarding Growth of Children 33 



xiv CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Factors determining Growth 35 

Growth of Parts 37 

Health and Growth 38 

Growth and Development 39 

Natural Order of Development in Relation to Exercise . . -41 

Exercises for Students 45 

Suggestions for Reading .45 

CHAPTER IV 

NATIVE ENDOWMENT OF THE SPECIES — INSTINCTS 

Kinds of Native Movements 47 

Two Views of Native Reactions 49 

Instincts and Structure 53 

Instincts and Consciousness 55 

Conditions affecting the Usefulness of Instincts 59 

Fixed and Indefinite Instincts 61 

Continuous, Transient, and Periodic Instincts 62 

Principles governing the Development of Instincts .... 63L, 
Causes of Differences in Individuals of the Same Species . . .65 

Classification of Instincts 66 

Exercises for Students -71 

Suggestions for Reading 72 

CHAPTER V 

MODIFICATIONS OF NATIVE ENDOWMENTS 

Nurture and Development . -73 

Instincts and Learning 74 

Modes of Learning 77 

The Physiology of Learning 81 

The Psychology of Learning and of Efficiency 83 

Maturity, Learning, and Ability • -87 

Habits 90 

General and Special Training 93 

Fatigue in Learning . 96 

Exercises for Students 99 

References « ^°^ 



CONTENTS XV 
CHAPTER VI 

THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN INFANT 

PAGE 

Early Movements 102 

Increase in Connection between Movements 104 

Early Mental States 106 

Development of Voluntary Control 108 

Learning to Walk 115 

Relation of Instincts to Mental Activities 118 

Exercises for Students 120 

Suggestions for Reading 121 

CHAPTER VII 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUALISTIC INSTINCT 

Strength of the Instinct 123 

Prominence in the Young 124 

Development of the Individualistic Instincts into Motives . . .126 
Individualism the Basis of Higher Development . . . .128 

The Feeding Instinct 130 

Fear 130 

The Fighting Instinct 135 

Exercises for Students 137 

Suggestions for Reading 138 

CHAPTER VIII 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RACLAL INSTINCT 

Lateness of Development 139 

Relation of the Racial Instinct to Other Impulses and Feelings . .141 

Right Development of the Racial Instinct 142 

Teaching Sex-hygiene and Morals 147 

Suggestions for Reading 148 

References 148 

CHAPTER IX 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOCIAL INSTINCT 

Forms of the Instinct 150 

1. Gregariousness 150 

2. Sympathy 151 



XVI 



CONTENTS 



3. Love of Approbation 153 

4. Competition and Cooperation 154 

5. Loyalty and Altruism . . . .. . . . .155 

Exercises for Students 157 

Suggestions for Reading 1 58 

CHAPTER X 

DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — IMITATION 

Characteristics of Imitation in Children 160 

Classification of Imitative Acts of Children 161 

1. Reflex Imitation 161 

2. Spontaneous Imitation 161 

3. Dramatic Imitation 162 

4. Voluntary Imitation 162 

5. Ideahstic Imitation . . . . . . . .163 

Development of Imitation 163 

Exercises for Students 172 

Suggestions for Reading 173 

CHAPTER XI 

DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — PLAY 

Theory of Play 175 

Work, Play, and Amusement 176 

Changes with Age as regards Freedom in Play 179 

Changes with Age as regards Powers used in Play . . . .181 
Changes with Age as regards Instincts involved in Play . . .183 

Play as a Factor in Education 185 

Exercises for Students 189 

Suggestions for Reading 190 

CHAPTER XII 

DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — CURIOSITY . 

Function of Curiosity 192 

Curiosity, Attention, and Interest 193 

Changes in Curiosity with Age 196 

Curiosity and Education . . . . 199 

Exercises for Students 202 

Suggestions for Reading 202 



CONTENTS 



xvu 



CHAPTER XIII 



DEVELOPMENT OF INSTINCTS 



REGULATIVE 



I. Moral Instincts 

Preparatory Stage of Moral Development 
Moral Training during the Preparatory Stage 
Transition Stage of Moral Development 
Moral Training in the Transition Stage 

II. Religious Instincts 

Preparatory Stage of Religious Development 
Religious Training in Childhood . 
The Period of Religious Awakening 

Exercises for Students 

Suggestions for Reading 



PAGE 

204 
204 
205 
213 

215 
218 
218 
218 

220 
221 
223 



CHAPTER XIV 



DEVELOPMENT OF INSTINCTS — VARIOUS RESULTANT INSTINCTS AND 

FEELINGS 

The Collecting Instinct 225 

The Constructive Instinct 227 

The iEsthetic Instinct 228 

The Migratory Instinct 232 

The Rhythmic Instinct 233 

Relation of Instinctive Actions to Feelings 233 

Relation of Fundamental StimuH to FeeUngs . . . . .236 

Exercises for Students 237 

Suggestions for Reading 237 

CHAPTER XV 

DEVELOPMENT OF INSTINCTS — THE EXPRESSIVE INSTINCT 

Origin, Nature, and Forms 239 

I. Auditory Expression 240 

Factors concerned in its Acquisition 240 

Stages of Learning Oral Language 243 

Instinctive Stage 243 

Playful and Imitative Stage 244 

Word-learning Stage 245 

Sentence-making Stage 249 



xviii CONTENTS 



PAGE 



II. Visual Language 253 

Methods of Learning to Read 256 

Learning to Write 259 

Learning to Spell 261 

III. Drawing 262 

Methods of Teaching Drawing 265 

Exercises for Students .267 

Suggestions for Reading 268 

CHAPTER XVI 

DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECT 

General Order of Development 272 

Development of Discrimination 277 

Development in Rate of Mental Activity 278 

Increase in Mental Grasp . . .279 

Development of Perception 280 

Development of the Power to Image '. 284 

Growth of Constructive Imagination 287 

Development of Creative Imagination 289 

Development of Memory 291 

Development of Concepts 294 

Development of Reasoning 296 

Exercises for Students 303 

Suggestions for Reading 306 

CHAPTER XVII 

INDIVIDUALITY 

Significance of the Term 310 \ 

Biological Value of Individuality 311 

Commonality and Individuality '. . .312 

Factors Producing Commonahty and Individuality . . . .314 

Time of Greatest Individuality 315 

General and Particular Truths regarding Children . . . .316 
Necessity of Recognizing Individuality in Children . . . .319 
How Commonality and Individuality may be developed . . .321 

Types of Individuality 321 

Exercises for Students 323 ^ 

Suggestions for Reading 325 



CONTENTS xix 

CHAPTER XVIII 

CHILD STUDY APPLIED IN SCHOOLS 



PAGE 



Use of Truths Known and Acquirable 327 

Observation and Incidental Study 328 

Study and Treatment of Individual Children 333 

Observation and Treatment of Fatigue and Nervous States . -335 

Suggestive Outlines for Observation 341 

Reports and Records 345 

Tests and Standards in the Study of Children 349 

Suggestions for Reading 356 

Bibliography . 359 



CHILD STUDY LITERATURE ^ 

Books Relating to the First Three Years of Childhood 

Dearborn : Moto-sensory Development. 
FiTZ : Problems of Babyhood. 
Major : First Steps in Mental Growth. 
Moore : Mental Development of a Child. 
Preyer: Mind of the Child, vols. I and II. 

Infant Mind ; condensed from above. 

Books Containing Sympathetic Observations and Practical 
Suggestions 

Abbott : On the Training of Parents. 

Berle : The School in the Home. 

Birney: Childhood. 

Bruce: Psychology and Parenthood. 

Cabot : Ethics for Children. 

Chenery : As the Twig is Bent. 

Davids : Notebook of an Adopted Mother. 

Du Bois : Beckoning of Little Hands. 

The Point of Contact. 

Fireside Child Study. 
Ewald : My Little Boy. 
Fisher : Self Help. 

A Montessori Mother. 
Forbush: a Guide Board to Childhood; it contains annotated bibliography. 
Gilman: Concerning Children. 
Gruenberg : Your Child To-day and To-morrow. 
Harrison : Misunderstood Children. 
Hillyer : Child Training. 
Hogan : A Study of a Child. 

^ At close of the book will be found a more complete bibliography, reference to 
which is made at the close of each chapter. 



xxii CHILD STUDY LITERATURE 

HuTCraNSON : We and Our Children. 

KiRKPATRiCK : The Use of Money. 

Malleson : Early Training of Children. 

Mangold : Problems of Child Welfare. 

McKeever : Training the Boy. 

Proudfoot : Mothers' Ideals. 

Spiller : The Training of the Child. 

Stableton : The Diary of a Western Schoolmaster. 

St. John : Stories and Moral Education. 

Stoner : Natural Education. 

Urwick : The Child's Mind, Its Growth and Training. 

WiGGiN : Children's Rights. 

Wiltse : The Place of the Story in Early Education. 

WiNTERBURN : From a Child's Standpoint. 

Nursery Ethics. 
Wood-Allen: The Mother in Education. 

Making the Best of Children. 

Autobiographical and Literary Accounts of Children 

Aldrich : Story of a Bad Boy. 

Burnett : The One I Knew Best of All. 

Canton: W. V., Her Book and Various Verses. 

HowELLS : A Boy's Town. 

Keller : Story of my Life. 

Laughlin: Johnnie. 

LoTi : Romance of a Child. 

Martin : Emmy Lou. 

Meynell : The Children. 

Phillips : Just about a Boy. 

Smith : Evolution of Dodd. 

All the Children of All the People. 
Warner : Being a Boy. 
White : Court of Boyville. 

Scientific hut not Severely Technical Books 

Abler : Moral Training of Children. 
Barnes : Studies in Education. 
Bolton : Principles of Education. 



CHILD STUDY LITERATURE xxiii 

Chamberlain : The Child. 

Dawson : The Right of the Child to be Well Bom. 

Drummond : Introduction to Child Study. 

The Child, His Nature and His Nurture. 
Gesell : The Normal Child and Primary Education. 
GoDDARD : The Kallikak Family. 
Hall : Aspects of Child Life and Education. 
Johnson : Education by Plays and Games. 
Jldd : Genetic Psychology for Teachers. 
King : The Psychology of Child Development. 

The High School Age. 
KiRKPATRiCK : The Individual in the Making. 
Lee: Play. 
QppENHEiM : Development of the ChUd. 

Mental Growth and Control. 
O'Shea : Social Development and Education. 
Partridge : An Outline of Individual Study. 

Genetic Philosophy; An Epitome of the Publications of 
G. S. Hall. 
RowE : The Physical Nature of the Child. 
Saleeby : Parenthood and Race Culture. 
St. John : Child Nature and Nurture. 
Swift : Mind in the Making. 

Youth and the Race. 

Learning and Doing. 
Sully : Psychology of Childhood. 
Tanner : The Child. 
Tracy : The Psychology of Childhood. 
Warner : The Nervous System of the Child. * 

Journals 

I. Pedagogical Seminary. Worcester, Mass. Is devoted chiefly to 
genetic phases of child physiology and psychology. 

II. Journal of Educational Psychology. Baltimore, Md. Is devoted 
chiefly to experimental studies of children and of psychological and peda- 
gogical tests. 

III. Psychological Clinic. Philadelphia, Pa. Is devoted chiefly to 
reports of studies of exceptional children. 



FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

CHAPTER I 

NATURE, SCOPE, AND PROBLEMS OF CHILD STUDY 
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CHILDREN AND ADULTS 

Physically and mentally, children differ from adults in other 
ways besides the obvious ones of size and knowledge. Physically 
this is evident from the fact that we can form some idea of the 
age of a person represented in a picture or statue when there is 
nothing to show the scale upon which it was made. There must 
therefore be peculiarities of form and proportion of parts at differ- 
ent ages upon which we base our judgments. Most persons, 
however, who have not had their attention called to the matter 
are unable to state in just what ways children and adults differ. 
Some even hesitate regarding the most obvious differences in 
relative size of head, body, and limbs, though the ratios are ap- 
proximately as follows : — 

Height of head of adult to that of an infant 2:1 

Length of body of adult to that of an infant 3:1 

Length of arm of adult to that of an infant 4:1 

Length of leg of adult to that of an infant 5:1 

These differences in proportion of parts are probably greater 
than exist between some adult animals and adult human beings. 
They are only the more obvious of the many differences between 
children and adults, in proportion of parts, size of vital organs, 
and physiological processes such as those of circulation, respira- 
tion, and digestion. 

B I 



2 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

Mentally, every one recognizes marked differences between the 
mind of a child and of an adult, as is indicated by the expressions 
*' childlike" and ''childish." When questioned as to the exact 
character of these differences, most persons are even more hazy 
and indefinite in their answers than they are regarding bodily 
differences. Those who have given the subject most attention, 
however, are sure that the mental differences are greater than 
the physical, though they are less easily stated in exact terms. 

ORIGIN OF CHILD STUDY 

This has led to the attempt to determine definitely and ac- 
curately the pecuHarities of childhood at various stages, and 
thus we have the beginning of a new science — that of Child 
Psychology, Paidology, or Child Study. If children were 
merely adults in miniature, there would be no occasion for such 
a science ; but as we have seen, they differ radically from adults, 
hence a science of child study has arisen, which is, in many re- 
spects, quite distinct from the general sciences of physiology and 
psychology. Such a study is necessary to the completion of 
the circle of the sciences, and it is also indispensable as a basis 
for the science of education and in efi&cient child welfare work of 
all kinds. 

The theory of evolution also has directed attention to the devel- 
opment of children as well as to changes in plants and animals as 
they pass from the embryo to maturity. This, with the growing 
interest in education and in all that pertains to child welfare, has 
stimulated the study of the physical and mental characteristics 
of children. Children have therefore become a distinct center of 
interest. 

PERIOD COVERED BY CHILD STUDY 

It is not easy to say when a boy or girl becomes a man or 
woman. Even in law there is variability; for a man is recog- 



NATURE, SCOPE, AND PROBLEMS OF CHILD STUDY 3 

nized as earlier mature or competent for certain purposes than 
he is for others ; e.g. he can enter the army at eighteen and vote 
at twenty-one, but cannot hold the office of President till he is 
thirty-five. Again, the law recognizes the passing of the normal 
adult stage by providing for the retirement of officers after a 
certain age. Old age, as well as the period before maturity is 
reached, may therefore furnish a separate field for study. 

Child study is properly concerned with all the changes that 
usually take place in human beings before they reach maturity. 
Most of these changes occur before the age of twenty, but some 
may not appear until ten or fifteen years later. 

Roughly speaking, infancy and childhood last about a dozen 
years, adolescence or the transition period about the same, 
vigorous maturity about three dozen, and old age or decadence, 
one dozen. Some powers mature and fail earlier and others later 
than at these periods. There are also great individual differ- 
ences as to the age at which maturity is achieved, and at which 
decadence begins. 

SIGNIFICANCE OF INFANCY 

A fish has relatively little infancy ; its form is from the first 
nearly that of the adult ; it can do almost everything the adult 
fish can do, and it is possible to teach it comparatively little. 
A robin is helpless at birth, yet practically mature at two months. 
A chicken does not need to learn to walk and take food. It 
becomes independent in a few weeks and completely mature in 
less than a year, though retaining considerable capacity for learn- 
ing. The child is helpless for months, dependent for years, 
immature at least a score of years, and capable of learning for 
three score. In general, the animals that are most helpless in 
infancy have the longest period of immaturity, and keep longest 
their plasticity or power of learning, are most complex, most 
capable of variety of sensation and movement, and most in- 



4 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

telligent. In other words, the longer the infancy of any species 
of animals, the greater its ultimate power and intelligence. 
This is true as a broad generalization, but of course there are 
many exceptions. 

ADVANTAGES OF A LONG INFANCY 

Looking upon an animal organism as a machine, the lower 
animals are more perfect at birth than the higher. They are 
like a complex *'nickel-in-the-slot" machine, which responds 
in an appropriate way not only to one, but to several kinds of 
stimuli. The fish has an almost unchanging environment and 
needs to do only a few things in order to secure food and avoid 
enemies ; hence, its mechanism from the first prepares it for most 
of the exigencies of life, and it need not and can not learn much. 
It is sent out of nature's factory nearly ready to do the limited 
business of life necessary for its own preservation. Higher ani- 
mals come into a much more complex environment, each phase 
of which requires a different response ; hence infinite complexity 
of structure is necessary for them to transact their life business 
successfully. 

Moreover, the environment varies according to the place in 
which the young animal is born, the season of the year, and its 
own movements ; hence, it is nearly as impossible to prepare a 
higher animal by its original structure for a successful Hfe as 
it would be to prepare a machine that would, from a single ad- 
justment, perform with accuracy and despatch all the functions 
of a clerk (including the answering of customers' questions). 

A machine may be constructed that will do part of the work of 
a clerk, but not all, for new situations arise which cannot be 
provided for by any fixed mechanism. This is especially true 
when he changes from one department to another, or one kind 
of business to another, or adopts new and improved methods. 
In a similar way the higher animals, in order to do their life work 



NATURE, SCOPE, AND PROBLEMS OF CHILD STUDY 5 

and live, must have the power of adjusting themselves to the 
environment into which they are born, and of adapting them- 
selves to changes in that environment. To do the first, they 
must be incomplete at birth and capable of being modified by 
experience till they fit their environment; and to do the 
second they must retain something of their plasticity or ca- 
pacity for being modified, so that if the environment changes 
they can again make the necessary adjustment to the new situ- 
tions. 

Infancy is, therefore, the period during which the more com- 
plex organisms are perfected by further internal development 
and by activities which prepare them to react appropriately 
to the various phases of their environment. In other words, it 
is the period for developing the native powers of the individ- 
ual and for learning how to Hve in the environment in which 
he finds himself. 

HUMAN INFANCY AND PLASTICITY 

Man is the most complex of animals and also the most capable 
of preserving himself in diverse climates and conditions of Hfe ; 
hence it is not surprising to learn that he is born with the greatest 
capacity for being modified to suit his environment. He is less 
mature, has fewer fixed modes of reaction to stimuH than other 
animals, and the period of his immaturity lasts from five to a 
hundred times as long as in others of the higher animals. Clearly, 
therefore, infancy is of vast significance in a human being, and 
a man's characteristics at various ages are more largely due to 
modifications produced by his own and less to race experiences 
than is the case with any other animal. Man has more instincts 
than any other animal, but his instincts are all subject to greater 
modification by experience. Plasticity is not only greater in 
man, but greatest in early Hfe. The more fundamental physical 
characteristics of a man are fixed at twenty-five, and the mental 



6 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

at thirty-five ; yet plasticity in minor details is retained till the 
period of decadence. 

Not only is the period of infancy longer in man than in animals, 
but it is longer in civilized than in savage people, and is con- 
stantly becoming longer. As life becomes more complex, more 
special training is needed before a young man is prepared to 
make a living for himself. The age of entering upon business 
and professional life is therefore from five to ten years later than 
it was fifty years ago. 

Not only is the period of preparation for living extended, but 
there is more need for the preservation of plasticity in every in- 
dividual as long as possible ; for the environment is constantly 
changing with the invention of new machinery and methods, 
and advancement in knowledge and social relations. Men who 
have not sufficient plasticity to adapt themselves to these 
changes quickly fail in the struggle for existence. The function 
of education in a progressive nation is therefore not merely to 
develop habits suited to present conditions of life, but also to 
preserve plasticity and if possible develop adaptability that will 
enable the individual to fit himself to new conditions as they 
appear. 

In the evolution of the race a long period of infancy has been 
of great significance. The helplessness of children kept parents 
together, and thus family life, which is the basis of all social life, 
had its beginning. Moreover, the task of caring for and train- 
ing children gives an education that could be achieved in no other 
way, and contact with such enigmatic and variable creatures re- 
news the youth of adults and helps them to preserve their plas- 
ticity. Not only does man's superiority to animals depend 
largely upon his longer infancy, or, in other words, upon his 
greater plasticity, but the position of each nation as a civilized 
power and of each individual in society is also largely determined 
by ability to respond to new situations in new ways. 



NATURE, SCOPE, AND PROBLEMS OF CHILD STUDY 7 
INNER AND OUTER FACTORS IN DEVELOPMENT 

We never know the nature of a material object until we bring 
it in contact with other substances and with new forces. In 
a similar way, we do not know the nature of a child until we have 
observed his actions under various conditions. Not only do 
we not know what the child is until we have observed his actions 
under various circumstances, but he actually acquires new 
characteristics in the presence of each new person and in the 
performance of each new action. 

What a child is, therefore, at any given time, is developed 
from what he was at the beginning, and what he has acquired 
by his reactions. What he may be is potentially present at 
first, and can become actual only after certain phases of his 
nature have been developed by experience. A grain of corn has 
the potential power of producing other grains of corn, but it 
cannot actually do so until it has been subjected to heat and 
moisture, and has developed leaves, stalk, tassel, and silk. In 
a similar way the child has various potential powers that cannot 
become actual until environment has developed certain others. 
No conceivable environment can make corn develop charac- 
teristics of the oak, or make it produce grain before it produces 
leaves. So the child must become a human being, and must 
develop in a certain way; each instinct, just as truly as the 
beard, has a definite time for development. 

Since, however, man is the most plastic of all beings, the order 
of his development is subject to great modification. This is 
especially true of his mind. UnHke other machines, the brain 
is always in process of construction, always being modified and 
never completed. A machine may be used for threshing oats 
for several years, then it can be used with equal success for 
threshing wheat ; but a brain used in the botanical classification 
of plants must be changed by practice before it is correspond- 



8 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

ingly useful in the grammatical classification of words. Every 
time the mind does a thing it becomes in some respects a different 
mind; hence the factors of nature and nurture are almost in- 
extricably mingled in psychical development, and this makes 
the natural order of development exceedingly difficult to deter- 
mine. 

The question is often asked whether certain characteristics 
are native or acquired. The answer might be in nearly every 
case, ''They are both." Native powers may lie dormant unless 
awakened and stimulated to activity by environment. On the 
other hand, nothing wholly foreign to one's nature can be ac- 
quired and made a permanent part of one's self. The relation 
of outer and inner factors in development is well illustrated by 
experiments on the optic nerve. Some kittens were kept blind- 
folded so the optic nerves were not acted upon by light, while 
the eyes of others of the same litter were opened and thus early 
subjected to the influence of light. At varying intervals the 
kittens were killed and their optic nerves examined. It was 
found that those which were kept blinded acquired their med- 
ullary sheaths without the stimulus of Hght, but much less 
quickly than the others. In this case the inner tendency was 
finally effective, even when the outer stimulus was cut off. In 
many other cases, however, where the inner tendency is less 
strong, outer influences are probably necessary in order that the 
inner possibility may become an actuality. All acquisitions, 
therefore, have for their roots inner tendencies, and all inner 
tendencies remain undeveloped or develop slowly without the 
action of favorable outer influences. 

THE PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED 

To study the outer and inner factors in human development, 
and to determine how the inner factors are modified by the 
outer, is the work of child study. It must discover the natural 



NATURE, SCOPE, AND PROBLEMS OF CHILD STUDY 9 

order of physical and mental development and the modifying 
effect of various conditions and activities at different stages. 
It must find what characteristics are, or tend to be, the most 
prominent at each age by determining the time of emergence 
and greatest prominence of each of the numerous instincts. ~ 

In order to eHminate the influence of environment, the test 
of generality must be applied and care must be taken that the 
instincts given form and intensity by special conditions are not 
confused with more fundamental or normal instinctive tendencies. 
For example, if all the children of about four years, in a village 
by the seashore, play at making and saiKng boats, the inference 
may be drawn that there is a natural tendency to engage in 
those occupations at that age. Further observations show 
that in other localities the play occupations of the children are 
in all cases characteristic of the neighborhood. Everywhere 
children of four years imitate, but what they imitate varies with 
their surroundings ; hence the correct generalization is that the 
tendency to imitate is strong at four years, because of inner laws 
of development, but that the particular form of imitation is 
determined by surroundings. 

In every phase of child study the problem is similar. In each 
case we ask what inner tendencies are prominent at each age, 
and how these tendencies are developed and modified by outer 
influences. Child study is, therefore, concerned with all the 
characteristics that are present at birth in so far as they differ 
from those of adults, and with the general laws of development, 
according to which changes in size, structure, and instincts take 
place between early infancy and complete maturity. 

The science of child study reveals the laws governing the more 
important changes with age in the course of the child's develop- 
ment and helps in understanding the more variable changes 
that appear from day to day. 

The art of successful management of children must be founded 



10 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

consciously or unconsciously on the science of child study. So 
great are individual differences at birth and so patent are the 
effects of environment that each child's peculiarities and history 
must be studied in order to rightly direct him. To show how 
such studies may be successfully made is another phase of the 
problems to be solved. 

GENERALITY OF INNER FORCES OF DEVELOPMENT 

The inner forces which determine the form, structure, and 
actions of each individual and the changes he shall undergo in 
reaching the adult stage are of three degrees of generality : 
(i) those determining what is characteristic of all members of 
the species ; (2) those determining what is common only in a 
certain family or group of families ; and (3) those producing the 
distinctive peculiarities of the individual. The first are the 
result of the whole history of the species and its ancestors in 
certain environment or environments ; the second, of a portion 
only of the species and in a more limited environment; while 
the third are the result of the union of slightly unlike parents 
and of influences acting upon the individual organism during 
the embryonic period. Bismarck had the common characteristics 
of all human beings ; he had also the characteristics prominent 
in Germans, and the individual peculiarities that made him 
Bismarck, rather than any other German. 

The science of child study is chiefly concerned with the char- 
acteristic tendencies manifested by all children ; yet it throws 
light on the more special characteristics of heredity in nations 
and families, and emphasizes the importance of individual char- 
acteristics. The educator needs to know what is usually true 
of children at each age in order that he may find the activity 
best suited to that age. The teacher, however, needs to be 
familiar not only with the characteristics common to most chil- 
dren of the age she has in charge, but also with their national 



NATURE, SCOPE, AND PROBLEMS OF CHILD STUDY ii 

and individual peculiarities. She must also make herself familiar 
with the environing influences past and present. 

Exercises for Students 

1. State physical differences between children and adults that you have 
noted or are able to discover. 

2. State mental differences between children at different ages. 

3. Mention various standards of maturity for men and women recognized 
by society as fitting them for certain purposes. 

4. Tell what you have observed regarding the young of animals as to 
their relative helplessness, and the length of their infancy. 

5. Mention instances where men have succeeded because of plasticity 
where others failed. Is plasticity needed more or less in children than in 
animals ? Why ? 

6. Give illustrations of children showing different characteristics in new 
surroundings and to different persons. 

7. Can you tell what characteristics are common at a certain age by 
studying children of one locality and nationality only ? Why ? Illustrate. 

Suggestions for Reading 

On physical differences between children and adults, see Oppenheim, chaps. 

ii and iii. 
On the new science of child study, see Hall, Forum, Vol. XVI, pp. 429-441 ; 

Chrisman, Forum, Vol. XVI, pp. 728-736 ; Ed. Rev., Vol. XV, pp. 269- 

284; O'Shea, Jr. Fed., Vol. XI, pp. 9-23, and Scripture, Ed. Rev., Vol. 

VIII, pp. 236-239. 
On old age, see Scott, Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. VIII, pp. 67-122. 
On the stages of development, see Chamberlain, chap, iv, and Sanford, 

Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. XIII, pp. 426-449. 
On infancy of animals. Mills, Animal Intelligence, Part III, and Spaulding, 

Pop. Sci. Mo., Vol. LXI, pp. 126-141 (reprinted); Thorndike, Psych. 

Rev., Vol. VI, pp. 282-291. 
On meaning of infancy, see Fiske, Excursions of an Evolutionist, chap, xii ; 

Destiny of Man, chaps, iv and vi ; Butler, Ed. Rev., Vol. XIII, pp. 58- 

75, or Meaning of Education, pp. 3-34; Christopher, Trans. III. Ch. 

S. Soc, Vol. II, No. 2, pp. 109-114; Chamberlain, chap, i; Pycroft, 

Pop. Sci. Mo., Vol. LXII, pp. 108-116. 



12 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 



On instincts and education, 


see Balliet, Am. Physical Ed, 


Rev., 


, Vol. VIII, 


pp. 1-7. 


Later References 
Books 






Bolton 


King (i) 1 




Tanner 


Drummond 


Gesell 
Articles 




Tracy 



Howard, Frank E. Psychological Differences between Children and 
Adults. Fed. Sem., 1913, Vol. XX, pp. 236-253. 

^The numbers refer to the titles listed in the Bibliography, p. 359. 



CHAPTER II 
LESS GENERAL NATIVE ENDOWMENTS OR HEREDITY 

Heredity is the term applied in biology to the production 
of like by like. The fact that the offspring of plants and ani- 
mals always belong to the same species as their parents, is named 
if not explained by the word "heredity." When the term is 
used by stock breeders and students of man, however, it has a 
more restricted meaning. It then refers not merely to the 
likeness in species, but to the less-marked characteristics which 
distinguish different breeds or families of the same species. A 
fiegro's child is not merely a human being, but he is a human 
being of the black type. A Bach is, as a rule, not merely a 
human being, a Caucasian, and a German, but also a Bach in 
the sense of being a musical genius. 

The context will usually show whether the term "heredity" is 
used in the narrower or the broader sense. In both senses, the 
laws and the fundamental phenomena are the same. A minute 
cell formed by the union of a cell from a male with the cell of a 
female of the same species, develops into a being similar to its 
ancestors, both near and remote, and yet not exactly like any 
one of them. 

We must not regard all native characteristics of the individual 
as hereditary. Offspring of the same parents differ from each 
other, partly because of heredity and partly from other causes. 
In all mammals there is a long period of development after two 
germ cells have united to form the embryo of a new individual, 
before birth takes place. During this time the body of the 

13 



14 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

mother constitutes the immediate environment and source of 
nourishment of the offspring. Individual pecuHarities at birth 
may be due in part to modifications caused by the condition of 
the mother. In so far as this may be the case, heredity would 
not be identical with native characteristics of the individual. 
Again, characteristics of ancestors which were not perceptibly 
present at birth in an individual, may be clearly evident in the 
youth or in the mature man and may therefore be properly 
described as hereditary, providing there is no way in which they 
could have been acquired by the individual from the environment 
or by imitation. 

There is considerable popular belief in the potency of "ma- 
ternal impressions." It is undoubtedly true that a severe shock 
to the mother, especially if it occurs from four to six months 
before the birth of the child, may have serious results. De- 
formities thus produced are the result of arrest or disturbance 
of development and do not have any relation to the specific 
cause of the nervous shock to the mother. The popular suppo- 
sition that if the mother is frightened by a hog, the child will 
resemble a pig, or if by a snake, will have the marks of a snake, 
has no support in scientific fact. There is no nervous connection 
between the mother and the fetus, hence the blood is the chief 
avenue of influence. Recent experiments of Dr. Cannon show 
that the character of the blood changes distinctly when the 
emotions of fear and anger are experienced ; hence it is reason- 
able to suppose that a pleasant, normal emotional life for the 
mother is favorable to the best development of the child, but it 
is not likely that ''maternal impressions" can go so far as to 
produce specific tastes or talents. Since the mother is the en- 
vironment of the child during fetal life her condition has some 
influence upon its development. Such characteristics as may 
be increased or decreased by the specific character of this environ- 
ment during pregnancy are not, properly speaking, hereditary 



HEREDITY 



15 



although they are congenital. The same is true of the effects 
of alcohol and venereal disease. A study of similar and dissimi- 
lar twins and of brothers and sisters who are not twins brings to 
light some of the interesting and complex relations between germ 
heredity, congenital and individual characteristics, and the in- 
fluences of environment. 

GENERAL TRUTHS OR LAWS OF HEREDITY 

(i) Children usually resemble their parents. A child is, how- 
ever, never exactly like either the father or the mother, nor does 
he possess the sum of all the characteristics of both or an equal 
fusion, but surely some of each. The prominent qualities of 
one parent or the other, rather than a fusion of those of both, 
frequently appear in the child. For this reason we find black- 
haired and red-haired children in the same family, instead of all 
with hair of an intermediate color. The child usually has also 
characteristics not possessed by either of his parents. The re- 
semblance to a grandparent or even a more remote ancestor, or 
to a relative not in the direct line of descent, as uncle or cousin, 
may be more marked than to the parents. 

(2) This suggests the truth that inheritance is not simply from 
parents, hut from the two lines of ancestry of the two families. This 
view is supported by the fact that stock breeders cannot predict 
the characteristics of the offspring of mongrels or mixed breeds, 
while they can .of those known to have been of pure blood for 
many generations. Going back a generation at a time one finds 
the number of ancestors increasing geometrically as follows : 
2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc., so that in the tenth generation there are a 
thousand ancestors. This shows why, when there are various 
breeds or families represented, it is impossible to predict the 
result of the union. On the other hand, when the ancestors are 
all from one line, the results can be predicted with some accuracy. 
So far as the facts are known it appears that the offspring of 



1 6 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

two parents of different lines of pure breed will, other things 
being equal, most resemble the one that has been kept pure the 
greatest number of generations. 

In the human race there is far less pureness of breed than in 
animals. A practically pure breed of animals pairing every 
year, can be established in five or six years ; while to establish 
a pure breed of human beings, even if a regular plan were followed 
as is done with domestic animals, would require a century and 
a half. Again, since human beings move about much more than 
other animals, the people of any given locality are, as a rule, of 
much less pure blood than the various species of animals in the 
same region. Migration, wars, and intermarriage have re- 
sulted in the mixing of blood from almost all portions of the globe. 
The results of heredity in human beings are, therefore, under 
ordinary conditions, infinitely more difficult to predict than in 
animals; yet color may be predicted with a good deal of cer- 
tainty in the offspring of black and white races. 

(3) Heredity is often oj a general capacity rather than of a 
specific ability. For example, the son of a great scientist may 
become a great writer or attain great success in business or 
poHtics. Moreover, nervous irregularity in the parents may 
appear in the children in the form of imbecility, insanity, or 
criminality. 

(4) Where there is close inbreeding^ it has been thought that 
weakness, especially mental, is likely to appear, and some of the 
royal families that have intermarried and degenerated are cited 
as evidence. Recent writers, however, are inclined to think that 
where weakness results from inbreeding, it is because weakness 
already exists and is merely increased by the process, while strong 
quahties are just as surely perpetuated and increased. The Jews 
have not developed mental weakness, though history shows no 
other such instance of human inbreeding carried on for thou- 
sands of years. 



HEREDITY 17 

(5) The of spring of parents of pure blood sometimes show char- 
acteristics of the remote ancestors of the breed; this is known as 
atavism or reversion. For example, pigeons like the original 
blue-rock pigeons from which all are descended, are occasionally 
found among the offspring of fancy strains which ordinarily 
breed true. Reversion is more likely to occur when distinct 
breeds are crossed. For example, mules, which result from 
crossing the horse and the ass, often have stripes similar to those 
of their zebra-like common ancestor. 

(6) Not all hereditary qualities are apparent at birth. There 
is good reason to believe that they appear at various stages of 
development, as do instincts, especially at the time of puberty. 
Physical features and mental and moral qualities of father or 
mother, hitherto unnoticed, often become conspicuous at this 
time. It is also claimed that inherited bodily or mental disease 
frequently appears at about the same age in certain families. 

GENERAL THEORY OF HEREDITY 

The germ cells that unite to form the human embryo are of 
almost microscopic minuteness. The embryo of man can at 
first scarcely be distinguished from the embryo of a rat or an 
elephant, yet it has potentially all the characteristics of the 
species man. Moreover, it has the peculiarities of the race, 
nation, and family of each of the two parents from whom the 
germ cells came. How such minute portions of matter can em- 
body all the characteristics of their ancestors and impose these 
characteristics upon all the nutriment by which their size is 
increased many million fold, is one of the greatest marvels of 
nature and life. Anything that will make this marvel definitely 
conceivable is therefore to be welcomed. 

If we accept the results of recent experiments showing the 
exceeding smallness of particles of matter, we may think of each 
characteristic of each tissue (such as bony or nervous) and of 



1 8 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

each organ as represented by different kinds of particles of matter 
in the germ cells. It is thus possible to conceive of the way in 
which the characteristics of the parents may be transmitted to 
their descendants. This gives a very crude theory, however, 
which is not supported by observation and experiment. If 
every tissue and organ must contribute material to the germ 
cell, we should expect that the child of a man who had lost a leg 
or an arm would lack the same member, but such is not the case. 
Again, if the different parts of an embryo are formed of different 
kinds of particles, we should expect that if an embryo were 
divided a complete organism could not develop from one 
of the parts. It has been found, however, by experiments upon 
frogs and other of the lower animals, that the fourth of the 
embryo (for example, of a frog) will, under favorable conditions, 
develop into a whole animal with no part missing. 

Slight changes in conditions, such as turning an embryo over, 
putting it in a new medium, subjecting it to a different tempera- 
ture, or supplying it with food differing in kind or amount from 
the normal, greatly modify its development. It is, there- 
fore, improbable that the characteristics of each animal and each 
organ are determined by fundamentally different elementary 
particles of which the germ cells are composed. It is more 
reasonable to suppose that there are comparatively few varieties 
of particles, and that these tend to combine in certain ways for 
each species, according to preestabHshed affinities, attractions, 
and repulsions which are modified in a greater or less degree by 
external surroundings of the embryo, and by the relative vigor 
of the different elements of the two germ cells composing it. 

The chief discussions in biology during the last decade have 
centred about the possibiHty of modifying germ cells through 
modifications of body cells. Changes in food, exercise, and mode 
of fife may make great changes in an animal or person; but 
whether such changes modify the germ cells also, so that de- 



HEREDITY 



19 



scendants will have the new characteristics, is a disputed point. 
For example, if a son is born to a man at twenty-five, and after 
the father has spent twenty years in practice to develop his 
musical talents, another son is born, will the last son inherit any 
more musical ability than the first one? Weismann, who has 
been the leader on one side of this controversy, says that no 
changes which take place in the life of a parent can modify the 
germ cells so as to affect the offspring. Each parent transmits 
to his offspring what he inherits, but not what he acquires. 

If this be true, culture cannot be directly transmitted; each 
new generation must begin where the old began, and if it advances 
beyond the former, it must be because of better advantages for 
learning rather than because of inherited ability. According 
to this view, acquired weakness of body or mind is also non- 
transmissible. 

In the biological world, progress is possible according to this 
theory because no two individual descendants are exactly alike, 
and because the members of each new generation that are best 
suited to survive under certain constant conditions, are the ones 
that live and produce descendants, while the others die or pro- 
duce few offspring. This process being repeated generation after 
generation, all offspring finally come to have the favorable char- 
acteristics in a marked degree. For example, of a dozen young 
partridges, the ones that are colored most nearly like their sur- 
roundings are likely to survive and produce descendants with 
similar coloring. Again, the most favorably colored of these 
survive and produce, and thus after many generations the prin- 
ciple of natural selection results in complete color adaptation to 
surroundings. When a breeder of fancy pigeons continues to 
breed only those having certain coloring, the results are similar, 
only in this case it is human instead of natural selection that 
determines the type of pigeon that shall survive. 

Instincts and intelligence are modified in a similar way. For 



20 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

instance, only those young partridges that have in the greatest 
degree the tendency to remain quiet when danger threatens, 
are Hkely to reach maturity and produce offspring. Natural 
selection, therefore, has thus determined the instinct as well 
as the coloring of the partridge. In the case of intelligence, the 
results are much the same. Plasticity or ability to learn is 
unquestionably favorable to survival ; hence the young animals 
that learn most readily are likely to survive and produce de- 
scendants, some of which have the capacity in a greater degree. 
These in turn survive, and thus may natural selection alone 
account for the development of intelligence in the higher animals 
and in man. To them abihty to learn in infancy is more advan- 
tageous than to know unchangeably many favorable modes of 
reaction. Thus ability to learn, which is the essence of intelli- 
gence, is developed. 

This question of inheritance of acquired characteristics is not 
yet settled in biology, but it is now generally admitted that the 
characteristics that a parent transmits are chiefly those that he 
inherited, and that the characteristics acquired by the parent 
rarely, if ever, so affect the germ cells as to be transmitted to his 
descendants. In the case of human beings if there is any trans- 
mission of acquired characteristics by germ inheritance, it is 
probably in so slight a degree as to have no effect worthy of note, 
unless it be where many generations have made the same ac- 
quisitions. Progress in civilization is therefore not to be looked 
for in greater inherited skill or intelligence. 

MENDELISM 

The whole theory of heredity and the methods of studying it 
have been modified by the experiments and generalizations of a 
man named Mendel who began experimenting with garden peas 
a half century ago. His results were obscurely published and 
only brought into prominence at the beginning of this century 



HEREDITY 21 

when two other scientists arrived at similar conclusions through 
their investigations. Since then, the laws that he formulated 
have been tested by numerous experiments upon plants and 
animals and by records of heredity in animals and in human 
beings. The results of these investigations and of the micro- 
scopic study of the development changes occuring in germ cells 
are in general confirmatory of Mendel's laws or formulated 
generalizations. He has undoubtedly furnished the key by the 
use of which many though perhaps not all the facts of heredity 
may be understood. 

In the original experiments performed by Mendel, round and 
wrinkled peas were crossed and the seed from the cross planted 
and allowed to be self -fertilized. The resulting crop consisted 
of approximately one fourth round peas which when planted and 
self-fertilized produced round peas only, one fourth wrinkled 
peas which when planted and self-fertilized gave a pure strain 
of wrinkled peas, while the remaining seeds were of a mixed 
character, producing when self-fertilized, three varieties of peas, 
round, wrinkled, and mixed, and in the same proportions as be- 
fore. Similar results have been found for a great variety of 
crosses of plants and animals, and in so far as a unit character 
can be distinguished, this law of heredity seems to be general. 
Its action may be shown by symbols representing unit characters 
as follows. Let A represent one unit character or determiner 
of the characteristic, e.g., roundness of peas ; and B another, e.g., 
wrinkledness ; then the union of cells resulting from a cross be- 
tween the two will be A and B determiners, plus A and B deter- 
miners, and it is evident that if A combines with A, the resulting 
individual pea will be of the pure round variety. Similarly, if 
B unites with B, a pure wrinkled pea will result. Again, if the 
A of one variety combines with B of the other and the B of the 
first with the A of the second there will be. two individuals of 
mixed character. It is evident then that when a mixed variety 



22 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

fertilizes itself that the chances are that one fourth of the A's 
will combine with A's, one fourth of the B's with B's, and one 
half of the A's with B's. 

This very simple law is often obscured by the principle of 
dominance of one characteristic and the recessiveness of the 
other. For example, a cross between a pure black and a pure 
white mouse results in black mice only, but one fourth of the 
descendants of these black mice of mixed heredity are white. 
Evidently B uniting with B can give only black progeny, while 
when B unites with W, since B is dominant, black is also the 
result ; but when W and W determiners meet, as they will accord- 
ing to chance in one fourth of the cases, white progeny will be 
produced. In a similar way light-haired or red-haired children 
may be born to parents who are both dark in complexion, pro- 
viding both parents have in their ancestry a person with Kght 
or red hair as the case may be. If one parent is of parents wholly 
dark in complexion and the other of mixed heredity or of light 
only, there will be no children of light complexion because dark- 
ness is dominant. There may, however, be degrees of darkness 
if one is dark and the other mixed, according as the units or deter- 
miners from the dark parent unite with the black or the white 
determiners of the parent cells of mixed ancestry. 

The cases just named are comparatively simple because black- 
ness and whiteness are positive and negative characteristics, 
whiteness being due merely to the absence of pigment. Where 
both characteristics are positive, there may be both charac- 
teristics in the progeny equally or in varying degrees of domi- 
nance, or there may apparently sometimes be some sort of fusion 
or modification of the two unit characters giving a progeny 
differing from either. 

Usually when there are several unit characters each follows 
the fundamental law of the single pairs. If round yellow peas 
are crossed with wrinkled green peas, several varieties of peas 



HEREDITY 23 

may result, such as round green peas or wrinkled yellow ones ; 
but the relative proportions of round peas will be the same as 
if all the peas were of the same color, while the proportion of 
yellow peas will be the same as if the crosses were of the same 
shape. 

There is still doubt as to what characteristics are really trans- 
missible as unit characters and as to the possible modifying effects 
of certain determiners upon others. Again there is reason to 
believe that in the changes taking place when the characteristics 
of two reproductive cells rearrange themselves in forming the 
new germ or embryonic cell, the various unit characters are not 
combined individually with other unit characters, but a group 
of unit characters combines with another group of unit char- 
acters. It may sometimes be difficult or impossible to isolate 
certain characters from others, such for example as bitterness 
and hardness in fruit, so as to get a hardy variety satisfactory 
to the taste. 

There are other phenomena of heredity upon which Mendelism 
throws Httle light, although not inconsistent with them. One 
of these is sex linked inheritance such as the inheritance of color 
blindness by a son from a mother who was not color bhnd but 
was the daughter of a man who was color blind, or the inheritance 
of egg productiveness from a cock whose mother had that char- 
acteristic while her daughters fail to show it. 

It will be seen that many of the earlier generalizations regard- 
ing heredity, based on experience, may now be explained very 
easily by MendeKsm ; and although all the problems are not yet 
solved, a flood of light has been thrown upon the subject. 

EUGENICS 

Recently there has been much discussion of the possibility of 
improving the human race through the application of the known 
truths of heredity to the mating of human beings. The move- 



24 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

ment was advocated by Sir Francis Galton and the term ''eugen- 
ics" coined by him. At first thought it seems strange that 
man, who has done so much to develop useful varieties of plants 
and animals from those that were relatively valueless, should not 
have exercised the same intelHgence in improving his own race. 

The difficulties, however, for positive eugenics are almost in- 
finitely greater than in the case of improving plants and animals. 
There are only from three to five generations in a century, hence 
much time is required to bring about changes in man by breed- 
ing. Again, the number of characteristics from which selections 
are to be made for improvement are much greater in man than in 
plants and animals. 

These facts would make the process a long and difficult one 
even if nothing stood in the way. There are other difficulties, 
however. No intelligent breeding is possible without a definite 
idea of what is desired. The man who wants breeds of beef, 
cattle, and draft horses proceeds in an entirely different way from 
the man who wants trotting horses and milch cows. Who can 
agree upon the characteristics and combination of characteristics 
that should be produced in the improved variety of human 
beings ? Should they all be of one variety or would it be better 
to have as many varieties of men as there are special talents? 
If these questions were settled, are we sure that any one could 
mate men and women more wisely than they would select for 
themselves if uninfluenced by social, financial, and other artificial 
reasons ? But aside from these considerations, the final practical 
reason why systematic positive improvement of the human race 
is not possible is that human beings cannot be controlled and 
made to mate as some one else deems fitting. 

The chances of success in the case of negative eugenics are, how- 
ever, much greater. The breeding of the admittedly unfit may 
be checked with the result that the general average of the hu- 
man race may be raised through a diminution of the number of 



HEREDITY 25 

unfit and inferior individuals born. The need for this form of 
eugenics is much greater than formerly because the lives of more 
of the physically and mentally unfit are preserved and because 
there is less limitation of the birth rate on the part of inferior 
classes of people than among the superior ; e.g., college graduates 
are not producing enough children to preserve their number, 
while feeble-minded persons are as a rule prolific beyond the 
average. The principal things suggesting encouragement are 
as follows : (i) Those who want children do not so frequently 
limit the number of their offspring if they can in any way care 
for them adequately ; (2) normality is in general dominant over 
abnormality. The offspring of a feeble-minded parent and a 
normal parent may all be normal in appearance, but half of them 
will be carriers of feeble-mindedness. If all mate with normal 
persons, only one fourth will carry the strain and so on until the 
number carrying it is almost negligible. Unfortunately this 
does not usually happen, for the feeble-minded more often mate 
with defectives and produce many offspring. 

These truths are most strikingly shown in the Kalikak family, 
where the descendants of the same man by a feeble-minded 
woman were nearly all of inferior mentality, while his descend- 
ants by a normal woman were of a superior type. 

The most significant fact of heredity for purposes of eugenics 
is closely associated with the above. If two carriers of feeble- 
mindedness or other abnormality, though not actually deficient 
themselves, mate, some of the offspring are likely to be abnormal. 
This is the chief principle which, in our present knowledge, must 
guide in practical eugenics. Persons who have the same type 
of abnormahty should not marry, although a person with an 
abnormality may often safely marry one whose ancestry is en- 
tirely free from that defect. Some abnormalities appear to be 
related, for example, feeble-mindedness, alcoholism, sex per- 
version, and tuberculosis. Indeed, it is not improbable that, in 



26 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

general, most forms of abnormality or weakness are related so 
that there is risk in the mating of two individuals who are not 
of sound stock even though their weakness is not the same. In 
the present state of knowledge, however, we are only justified 
in saying that those having the same deficiency in their ancestry 
should not marry, and that where the defects have been shown to 
be related, the same rule should apply. 

In the case of some defective classes, especially the feeble- 
minded, it is evident that they will not control themselves, hence 
society must take the matter in hand. Laws prohibiting their 
marriage are not sufficient, for they propagate without marriage. 
Sterilization laws are not well enforced and their value is ques- 
tioned. Custodial care is a sure remedy to which there is little 
objection except that of cost. This may be met in part by 
employing in useful labor a large proportion of the number 
confined. About two thirds of the cases of feeble-minded- 
ness are hereditary, and one generation of complete custodial 
care would probably reduce this class of feeble-mindedness by 
one half. 

The prevention of other forms of inferior births by force is 
less easy, partly because we do not know so well who should be 
prevented from procreation and partly because we feel less justifi- 
cation for interference with the liberty of the individual. Some 
forms of insanity are known to be inheritable while in other cases 
there is much uncertainty. It is impossible to tell whether cer- 
tain unions are more likely to result in the production of an 
inferior individual or of a genius who may be worth more to 
society than many commonplace normal persons. In the case 
of criminals who are not otherwise deficient our present knowl- 
edge gives little or no ground for action. In the case of blindness 
and deafness we know that if the same defect is hereditary in 
both lines of ancestry some of the children will almost surely 
be defective. There is little reason to suppose, however, that 



HEREDITY 27 

the union of a congenitally blind person (such cases are rare 
anyway) with a congenitally deaf person (of these there are many) 
would be any more likely to result in defects than if either mated 
with normal persons. 

There are causes for the production of the unfit which are not 
strictly hereditary, the chief of which are venereal diseases and 
alcoholism. The first produces defects through germ infection 
of the embryo, and the latter through the devitalizing effects of 
the drug upon the germ cells of the parents. Regarding the first, 
there is no dispute ; while in the case of the latter the facts as to 
the probable degree of injury are not known. 

Laws restricting marriage and requiring medical examination 
previous to the issuing of a marriage license may be helpful, but 
they can only be made effective through an enlightened public 
opinion ; hence, in the last analysis the cause of eugenics is best 
furthered by educational means. Not only is education needed, 
but also more knowledge ; hence, there should be laws regarding 
marriage and birth records which would result in the accumula- 
tion of a vast number of reliable facts from which might be 
deduced more accurate laws of human heredity making possible 
more intelligent eugenic action. 

SOCIAL HEREDITY 

The acceptance in whole, or even in part, of Weismann's theory 
of heredity seems at first to make the problem of the improvement 
of the human race an almost hopeless one, since each generation 
gets no direct benefit from the improvement of the preceding 
generation, but must begin just where it did. A closer study, 
however, shows that the chances for racial improvement are just 
as good on the basis of this theory as on that of any other. 
Capacity for education, rather than increased knowledge and 
power at birth, is what human beings need in order that they 
may advance ; and natural selection will amply provide for this, 



28 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

especially in these days of rapid change in the conditions and 
activities of life. 

The other factor most needed for racial advancement is a more 
favorable environment — greater intellectual and social treasures 
— which may be appropriated by the new generations without 
the toilsome digging required by their predecessors. Each new 
generation inherits, not only the wealth and knowledge of the 
race, but all the means of wealth and knowledge, such as ma- 
chinery, industrial and commercial organizations, educational 
and scientific institutions, systems and methods, together with 
more or less fixed social ideals, customs, and language. Whether 
a man inherits the minute structural changes produced in his 
parents' bodies by what they did before his conception, is a 
matter of little moment compared with his inheritance of ca- 
pacity and opportunity for using all the accumulated results of 
the experience of the ages. It is this inherited environment in 
which he is to grow, and upon which he is to feed, that chiefly 
determines the amount and direction of his development. All 
the conditions of life produced by civilization constitute what, 
in a very general way, may be called ''social inheritance." Man 
is truly "the heir of all the ages," and each generation utilizes 
what has been produced and learned by the preceding. The 
social heritage of an individual consists of all the knowledge, 
beliefs, customs, laws, and language of the nation, community, 
and family into which he is born. 

Much of what has been ascribed to physical heredity is, in 
reality, due partially or wholly to social heredity. The history 
of the Jukes family, in which it is shown that nearly all of more 
than a thousand descendants of one man were criminals or 
paupers, proves nothing regarding physical heredity, for the 
family was for many years almost isolated from society; con- 
sequently, the factor of social heredity had the fullest chance to 
operate. The children of a young couple belonging to this family 



HEREDITY 29 

who moved into another locahty, and thus partially got the 
benefit of a different social inheritance, grew up much as other 
children of the neighborhood. The records of charitable societies 
show that about eighty-five per cent of the children of paupers 
and criminals who are placed in good homes at an early age be- 
come good citizens. 

Every nation and every family possesses a wealth of beliefs, 
sentiments, artistic and moral ideals, lore, traditions, and cus- 
toms which descend to the children by an incontestible law of 
entail. Truly, in educating a child, we should begin with his 
grandparents; for he will inevitably get the benefit through 
social heredity in the form of family customs, habits, and tradi- 
tions, though probably not through inherited acquisitions. 

Improvement in the human race may be brought about first 
by making a better home and community environment which 
will give the best opportunity and stimulus for the development 
of desirable quaHties, and second by improving the methods of 
instruction so that the children shall be able to take swift and 
complete possession of their valuable inheritance in material, 
social, and intellectual lines and use it efficiently. From the 
individual standpoint heredity should neither be ignored as of 
no importance nor yielded to as inevitably fixing one's destiny. 
Instinctive and hereditary tendencies are the roots from which 
the physical, mental, and moral Hfe develops. Some individuals 
may develop more readily, and to a greater degree than others, 
all or some human characteristics, but each may make the most 
of his environment. Some cannot go as far as others in certain 
directions nor as easily, but no one has exhausted his possibilities 
of development. The practical problem is to expend our efforts 
upon the useful characteristics which we possess in the greatest 
degree. 



30 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

Exercises for Students 

1. Give examples of heredity in both the broader and the narrower mean- 
ing of the word. 

2. Illustrate each of the laws of heredity. 

3. Indicate how such characteristics as those of pointer dogs, trotting 
horses, homing pigeons, could have developed either with or without the 
inheritance of acquired, characteristics. 

4. Give several illustrations of Mendelian inheritance known to you. 

5. Look up the statistics of the birth rate among different classes of people 
and point out their bearing upon eugenics. 

6. Imagine a company of people of a civilized country placed on an island 
without tools or machines of any kind, and think how long it would take 
them to be able to live as they had been living. Then imagine a company 
of children of civilized people left without a language or any social or intellec- 
tual knowledge, as well as without the material conveniences of civilization, 
and think how long it would take them and their descendants to reach the 
civilization of their parents. 

7. Are the peculiarities of half-breeds and others who are without a 
country or people of their own, due chiefly to physical or to social heredity ? 

8. What is the effect of never being a member of a family, as in the case of 
children in orphan asylums ? Why ? 

Suggestions for Reading 

On the general theory of heredity, see Orr, Theory of Development and In- 
heritance-, Brooks, Heredity, 2ih,o The Foundations of Zoology ; Weis- 
mann. The Germ-Plasm; Romanes, An Examination of Weismannism^ 
also Darwin and After Darwin, Vol. II. 

For facts regarding heredity and environment, consult Ribot, Heredity; 
Nisbet, Marriage and Heredity; works on criminals, especially Morrison, 
Juvenile Offenders; Winship or Dugdale on The Jukes; Galton, Heredi- 
tary Genius; Woods, " Mental and Moral Heredity in Royalty," Pop. 
Set. Mo., Vol. LXI, pp. 366-378, 449-460, 506-513, Vol. LXII, pp. 76- 
84, 167-182 ; Ellis, Pop. Sci. Mo., Vol. LVIII, pp. 595-603, Vol. LIX, 
pp. 59-67 ; Oppenheim, Development of the Child, chap, iv ; and for a 
good brief discussion of theory and facts, see Eigenmann, Pop. Sci. 
Mo., Vol. LXI, pp. 32-44. 

On heredity and education, see Guyau, Education and Heredity; Bradford, 
Heredity and Christian Problems. 



HEREDITY 



31 



On social heredity, see Baldwin, Vol. II, especially pp. 57-64 ; Allen, A^. W. 

Mo., Vol. IX, pp. 400-403, 436-439 ; Ed. Rev., Vol. XVIII, pp. 344*352 ; 

Monro, Ed. Rev., Vol. XVI, pp. 367-377. 
See also Wilson, The Cell in Development and Inheritance. 





Later References 






Books 




Bolton 


EUis, Havelock (i) 1 


Sandiford 


Conklin 


Goddard (i & 2) 


Thomas 


Conn 


Hirsch 


Thompson 


Castle 


Jewett 


Thorndike (4 & 8) 


Davenport 


Jordan 


Walter 


Danielson 


Nisbet 


Winship 


Dugdale 


Pearson 


Woods 


Elderton 


Saleeby 





1 The numbers refer to titles listed in the Bibliography, p. 359. 



CHAPTER III 

PHYSICAL GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 

GENERAL PHENOMENA OF GROWTH 

If we were introduced into a factory where little machines 
were taking into and making part of themselves, wood, iron, 
and other manufacturing materials, and thus gradually becoming 
large machines, each of its own kind {e.g. locomotives or sewing 
machines), and that without interfering with the movement of 
a cog, crank, or wheel during the enlargement, we should be 
astonished beyond measure. Yet this is analogous to what 
organic machines (plants and animals) are doing in nature's 
factory all around us. Milk, grass, and grain are transformed 
into horses, cows, chickens, and children, with the proper char- 
acteristics of each ; and all the time bones, muscles, and blood 
vessels are enlarging without a pause in the working of the 
organism. Only familiarity prevents us from continually 
wondering at this miracle, repeated in a thousand different 
forms each year. 

Every organism begins as a single cell, and by taking in and 
transforming nourishment, it grows into an individual of its 
species. All increase in size is the result of two processes : 
(i) increase in number of cells by division, and (2) enlargement 
of the cells thus formed. Growth during the embryonic period 
is due mainly to the first cause, and after birth, to the second. 
The body of a child is composed of about as many cells as that 
of an adult; hence his growth is principally by the enlarge- 
ment of cells. 

32 



PHYSICAL GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 33 

The importance of inner tendencies is well illustrated in 
physical growth and development. The law of motion, that 
a body once set in motion continues to move forever and at the 
same rate, unless acted upon by some other force, does not apply 
to growth. An organism does not grow forever when once 
started, nor is the rate of growth uniform, but it grows at a 
varying rate, till the size of its species is attained, then it stops. 
It is not even possible to change, except within narrow limits, 
the rate, amount, or direction of growth, by changes in food 
and surroundings. Evidently each species is so organized that 
it grows about so much during a certain time, and lives about 
so long. That size is determined largely by the number of ele- 
ments in the germ cell is indicated by recent experiments upon 
the embryos of lower animals. It has been found, for example, 
that if the embryo of a frog is divided into two or four parts, 
each part will develop into a whole frog, but of a correspondingly 
fractional size and length of life. 

GENERAL TRUTHS REGARDING GROWTH OF CHILDREN 

The most rapid growth is before birth, for the infant at birth 
is five million times as large as the original germ cell. After 
birth the most rapid growth is during the first year, when it is 
nearly threefold. From this time on increase in size is less 
rapid, and in general the rate slightly decreases till about the 
eleventh year, when there is an acceleration in growth, first in 
height, then in weight. The acceleration in growth begins 
earHer in girls, but lasts longer in boys. In both, the stage of 
rapid growth at puberty is preceded and followed by a period 
of slow growth, and again in both, rapid growth in height pre- 
cedes rapid growth in weight. Since girls begin growing rapidly 
while boys are in the stage of slow growth, girls are for a year 
or two taller and heavier than boys. The age at which this 
occurs in girls is about twelve years, but varies a year or two in 



34 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

different countries. Growth is usually complete before twenty, 
at least as regards height. 

Measurements of individual children show that in general a 
period of rapid growth in height or in length of Hmb is a period 
of slow growth in diameter, and, conversely, rapid growth in 
diameter occurs at the time of retarded growth in length. 

The absolute height and weight of healthy children may vary 
greatly, but the relation of weight to height is more nearly the 
same for children of varying size who are of the same age. The 
coefhcient of growth found by dividing weight by height varies 
from .95 at five and a half years of age to 1.90 at seventeen years. 
In other words a boy of five weighs less than one pound for each 
inch of height, while one of seventeen weighs nearly two pounds 
for each inch of height. The normality of a child's growth is 
better indicated by his weight-height coefficient than by any 
absolute figures. The coefficient for tall children is, however, a 
little in advance of that for short children of the same age, 
which indicates that they mature earlier. 

Since lung power or breathing capacity is such an important 
factor in all physiological processes, it is not surprising to find 
that there is a definite relation for each age between height and 
lung capacity or breathing power. At five and a half years of 
age the cubic inches of breathing capacity divided by the linear 
inches of height give a vital-height coefficient of 1.16, while at 
seventeen it has increased to 3.50. (See curves and tables in 
the Baldwin cards reproduced in Chapter XVIII.) 

The relation of growth coefficients to maturity seems to be 
very close. A child who has high coefficients of weight-height 
and breathing power-height is likely to be more mature physio- 
logically than the one whose growth and vital coefficients are 
low. Children who become pubescent at an early age are likely 
to have high coefficients, while those who are late in maturing 
usually have low coefficients. 



PHYSICAL GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 35 

There is reason to believe also that mental maturity corre- 
sponds more closely with physiological age than it does with 
chronological age. Children who rank high in the coefficients 
of growth and vitality are therefore likely to be more mature 
mentally than those who rank low, although they are not neces- 
sarily brighter than the smaller and less mature children. The 
relations of breathing power and weight are probably most 
significant of all ratios as to health and mental development. 
According to De Busk the coefficient of breathing capacity to 
weight correlates closely with the results of the Binet tests as 
to mental age. 

FACTORS DETERMINING GROWTH 

The truths regarding growth stated in the preceding topic 
apply not merely to the people of one race, or to those with the 
same habits of exercise and eating, but to all peoples from which 
statistics have been obtained ; hence these variations in growth 
conamon to all of the human species must be due to inner ten- 
dencies. So definite are these tendencies that of all human 
beings living under the most varied conditions there are very 
few who fail to reach a height of five feet and still fewer that 
greatly exceed six feet. 

Heredity is another less universal inner tendency determining 
growth, as is shown by the fact that people of certain nations 
and of certain families mature earlier or attain a greater size 
than those of others. There are also tendencies to certain ac- 
celerations of growth which are peculiar to individuals, for not 
all children, even of the same family, grow at the same rate at 
the same age. Neither do they all attain the same size when 
outer influences are the same. The amount and rate of growth 
of every child is thus largely determined by inner tendencies. 

Outer influences, however, such as cHmate, exercise, and 
nutrition may modify rate and amount of growth. 



36 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

Climate, especially temperature, may be a factor in growth, 
since seasonal variations may be detected in the growth of 
children. Increase in the height of children is greatest in the 
spring and early summer, while increase in weight is greatest in 
the fall or early winter. This may be interpreted either as the 
result of an inner tendency to rhythmic seasonal growth, or to 
the effects of variation in temperature. People in warm coun- 
tries mature more quickly, but do not reach a greater size, than 
those in cold countries ; hence, we may infer that heat does not 
increase the ultimate size of human beings. People of the 
Arctics and the Tropics are as a rule not large ; hence, a temperate 
cHmate is probably more favorable to the greatest growth. 

Exercise may modify amount and rate of growth to some 
extent, but its greatest effect is probably in the substitution of 
muscular for fatty tissue in certain parts, without much change 
in ultimate size. The fact recently noted that children engaged 
in manual training during the summer showed less than the 
usual variation in growth, with change of season, suggests that 
seasonal variations in growth may be due to change in occupa- 
tion as much as to change in temperature. 

The fact that children of the well-to-do, and presumably 
better fed, classes are larger than those of the less favored class, 
seems to indicate that nutrition is another important factor in 
growth. In England this might be partially explained by hered- 
ity, but not in this country. The fact, however, that the rate 
of growth of children in both this country and in England is 
less in the well-to-do classes during school life from the ages of 
six to eighteen than it is in the poorer classes, shows that the 
effects of good or poor nutrition must be chiefly limited to the 
period preceding the school age. It is altogether probable that 
poor nutrition has the greatest effect during the embryonic 
period and the first year or two of life when growth is rapid; 
hence, though both infants and adults of the poorer classes are 



PHYSICAL GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 37 

smaller than those of the more favored classes, yet the amount 
of growth from six to eighteen is greater in the former than in 
the latter. 

That growth is greatly affected by a combination of factors 
dependent upon housing conditions is strikingly shown by statis- 
tics of the height of children tabulated according to the number 
of persons per room. 

A temporary condition such as sickness nearly always retards 
growth ; but if recovery is complete, there is usually a period 
of rapid growth in which the loss is made up ; hence, though the 
time of growth may thus be modified, the total growth is probably 
affected only by prolonged illness or other unfavorable conditions. 

GROWTH OF PARTS 

The facts previously mentioned as to the difference in the 
relative size of parts in children and adults are only some of the 
most striking instances of the general truth, each part increases 
in size according to an inner law of its own. Other facts equally 
striking are as follows : the brain increases in weight about four 
times, the heart thirteen times, and the lungs twenty times. 
The weight of the brain of boys at birth is 12.29 P^^ cent of that 
of the body, while at twenty-five it is only 2.16 per cent of the 
weight of the body. The changes of other organs are : heart, 
from .76 per cent to .46 per cent ; right lung, .94 per cent to .77 
per cent; liver, 4.6 per cent to 2.8 per cent; and kidneys, .75 
per cent to .46 per cent. The shape of the organs also changes 
with age. For example, the Eustachian tube is not only relatively 
short in the child, but it is absolutely broader than in the adult ; 
while the child's stomach is much more tubular in form and more 
nearly vertical in position than the adult's. 

The law governing the growth of each part must, however, 
be consistent with the general law governing the growth of the 
body as a whole, otherwise the proportion of parts would vary 



38 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

to such an extent that organic processes would be disturbed, 
and hfe and health could not be maintained. Presumably it is 
advantageous for the proportion of parts to vary somewhat at 
different ages, when there are different functions to be performed 
and when the physiological processes of respiration, circulation, 
and digestion are undergoing change. 

It is now known that growth is regulated to a considerable 
extent by the action of cert in glands, notably the thyroid. De- 
ficiency in size and mentality is frequently associated with de- 
ficiency in this organ. 

HEALTH AND GROWTH 

Normal growth during childhood is in general a sign of good 
health, while very rapid or very slow growth is usually a sign of 
poor health. The period of rapid growth at the beginning of 
puberty is generally regarded as a critical period both physically 
and mentally. 

There is difference of opinion, however, as to the relation of 
growth to health at this time. It is held by some that health is 
likely to be interfered with by this rapid growth. This may be 
true in individual cases; but the investigations of Hertel and 
others show that there is less illness among boys and girls during 
the period of rapid growth than in the years of slow growth im- 
mediately preceding and following. To this it is repHed that 
though there is not actual disease, there is usually some debiHty 
that with a Uttle overstrain may result in illness ; hence, require- 
ments, especially in school, should be lessened at this time in 
order that all the energy may be expended in growth. The facts, 
however, do not support this view, for most youths are more 
energetic and restless at this than at any other time (though 
some individuals are sluggish and listless). Experiments also 
prove that at this time there is a great increase of muscular 
power and in size of vital organs, especially the lungs. The 



PHYSICAL GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 39 

argument that ill health often dates from this period is answered 
by the fact that recovery also often takes place at this time 
through what is called ^'outgrowing the disease." 

There is no ground, therefore, for the view that in general 
either physical or mental work should be discarded during this 
period, though such is undoubtedly advisable in individual 
cases. Moderately rapid growth is always an accompaniment 
of health and vigor. The only difference is that at this time 
growth is normally more rapid than at other times. Abnormally 
rapid growth is likely to be accompanied at this, as at other ages, 
by poor health and imperfect development. Temporary weak- 
ness may result at this time from inequality in growth and 
development, as when a child grows rapidly in height without 
a corresponding increase of lung capacity. The development of 
new functions at this age complicates the situation. Although 
at this time a youth can often do more work and endure more 
hardships than at any other time, yet if the difficulties are not 
overcome, the results are more serious than at any other time, 
especially when there is lack of harmony in the development of 
parts. The rapid growth of this period calls not for less work 
but rather for more, yet care must be exercised that there be 
no overstrain. At this time is needed not stimulation or repres- 
sion, but direction, in order that development may correspond to 
growth and be of a desirable kind. 

GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 

These two terms are often used interchangeably, probably 
because the processes usually take place together. Their mean- 
ing is, however, different, and there is often a lack of correla- 
tion between the processes. 

Growth^ properly speaking, refers only to increase in size of 
parts, and the consequent change in size and shape of the body 
as a whole. It is the result of increase in the number or size 



40 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

(or both) of the cells composing the body. Development more 
properly denotes changes in character and connection of cells. 
If an infant were to grow to adult size without any corresponding 
change in cells, he would be utterly incapable of sustaining his 
weight, with his cartilaginous bones and flabby muscles not yet 
connected with controlling nerve centers. It is a fact well 
known to physicians that deficient or improper nutritive condi- 
tions often affect development more than they do growth. A 
child may be quite large for his age, but poorly developed because 
of lack of mineral matter in the bone cells, just as a plant in a 
dark cellar may attain great size but be utterly lacking in the 
essential qualities of a healthy plant. 

Arrest or acceleration of growth and development together 
is probably less serious than of either alone. Where they take 
place together, subsequent growth and development are not 
necessarily interfered with. Cells probably tend to change in 
character when increasing in size, and to change in size when 
being modified in character. Changes of one kind only are 
usually disturbing ; hence, it may be stated as a general rule : 
rapid growth should he accompanied or quickly followed by a cor- 
responding change in development in order that arrest of development 
may not occur. 

After the inner growth tendencies have worked themselves 
out, and full normal size is attained, there is still some possibility 
of change in size of parts, especially of muscles. Sickness and 
lack of exercise decrease their size, while, in health, exercise in- 
creases it. Ordinary exercise during middle life maintains the 
size of muscles, while in old age the muscles are decreased rather 
than increased in bulk by special exercise. The old man of 
eighty who increased the size of his calves by bicycle riding was 
an exception to the general rule. The term '' development" 
is sometimes applied to special increase in size of parts, produced 
by exercise, but the word even then usually implies also change 



PHYSICAL GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 41 

in quality of the part. A muscle, for example, when exercised, 
increases in hardness more than in size. 

Nerve centers are capable of less growth through exercise 
than muscles ; but they have greater capacity for development, 
or, in other words, for changes in cells and in connections between 
cells. Growth of the brain is nearly as complete at six as is 
growth of muscle at three times that age, whereas development 
of nerve cells is not complete at twice eighteen. Growth of the 
brain is due almost wholly to growth of the fibers connecting 
cells with each other, and this is an important phase of develop- 
ment, since the cells are thus brought into harmonious relation. 
The increased mental power that comes with age and training 
is the result, not so much of changes in individual cells, as of 
changes in those connections between cells which make possible 
the use of many parts of the brain in the accomplishment of a 
single purpose. 

NATURAL ORDER OF DEVELOPMENT IN RELATION TO EXERCISE 

Whatever may be true of the effect of exercise upon growth as 
a whole, it cannot be questioned that development is promoted 
by moderate exercise of the whole body. This is true during 
both the growing and the mature stage of life. As to particular 
parts of the body we know that changes in growth and develop- 
ment may be produced by systematic exercise of certain parts. 
This is well shown in the various types of athletes with extraor- 
dinary leg, arm, back, or chest power. 

Again, occupations requiring the use of one arm or one leg 
only may produce overdevelopment on one side. Such excess 
of development of one limb over the other is, however, Hmited. 
Experiments show that when the right arm is used, nervous 
impulses are sent to other muscles than those used, and also to 
the corresponding muscles of the left arm. Gain in size and 
strength from systematic exercise of certain muscles is shared 



42 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

by other parts of the body. For this reason some degree of sym- 
metry is preserved when the exercise is largely one-sided. The 
development of internal organs, especially the muscles of the 
heart and lungs, is also affected by exercise of other organs; 
hence the dangers of overspecialization are diminished by this 
partial diffusion of the effects of exercise. Yet it is not difficult 
to destroy bodily symmetry by overexercise of parts, while 
equilibrium of functions of different parts is still more easily 
disturbed, so that ill health and death are not infrequent results 
of extreme specialization in exercise, e.g. a man who developed 
his muscles so that he could lift three thousand pounds, died from 
nervous exhaustion. 

The effects of exercise on growth and development are prac- 
tically the same for nerve cells as for muscle cells, except that the 
changes in size are not so great in nerve cells. Nerve cells not 
exercised because of loss of a limb or of a sense at an early age, 
as in the case of Laura Bridgman, are not quite as large as other 
cells and much less developed, i.e. have fewer processes extending 
out from them. 

Muscular ability depends not so much upon the degree of 
development of muscles as upon the harmonious working of all 
the muscles concerned in a movement. It is therefore more a 
matter of nervous connections than of muscular strength. This 
is perhaps best illustrated in throwing and wrestling, where 
victory goes not to the strongest, but to the one whose muscles 
work together to the best advantage. A skillful thrower uses 
first the muscles of the legs, then successively those of the body, 
shoulder, arm, forearm, wrist, and fingers, and the ball, shot, 
or hammer leaves the hand with a force equal to the sum of the 
forces exerted by these muscles. An unskilled thrower, on the 
other hand, uses principally the muscles of shoulder and upper 
arm, and these not in harmony ; hence, though he have the arm 
of a blacksmith, he may be beaten by a stripling baseball pitcher. 



PHYSICAL GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 43 

It is evident that special exercise of parts may be injurious 
because it overdevelops the parts exercised, and hinders rather 
than helps in the harmonious working of part with part. Ex- 
treme specialization is therefore to be avoided at all times. 

During the growing period, when plasticity is greatest, extreme 
and permanent speciaHzation is much more readily produced 
than in adult life, when plasticity is less and parts are already 
normally developed. It may be even questioned whether, in 
growing children, all specialization is not overspecialization. 
Boys who specialize in a single form of athletics at an early age 
in the secondary schools are likely to fail in college and univer- 
sity contests. 

On the general principle that development should accompany 
or follow growth, it is probably best for children to have more 
exercise of one part at one time and of others at another ; hence 
the tendency often noticed in children to speciaHze in one direc- 
tion for awhile, then in another, is probably a good thing. Such 
specialization is directed by play and occupation interests, but 
is probably really determined largely by growth and develop- 
ment changes. Such specialization is usually temporary and in 
accord with the natural order of growth and development ; hence, 
it is not injurious or disturbing. 

If we knew the natural order in which the nerve and muscle 
centers grow and develop, we could perhaps devise physical 
and mental exercises that would be most favorable to perfect 
development at each stage of life. In the absence of such knowl- 
edge any attempt at special training during the growing period 
may interfere with the natural order of development, and dis- 
turb instead of promote harmony of function. 

In all schools certain physical and mental activities are per- 
formed over and over every day ; hence, with reference to all the 
child's powers there is a great deal of specialization, though the 
training is intended to be general rather than special. It is 



44 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

altogether probable, therefore, that in giving children the train- 
ing they will need in later life, at a time when they are in an earlier 
stage of development, we are to a considerable extent interfering 
with their natural order of development. 

The studies of Bryan, Hancock, and others have demonstrated 
what is evident to every close observer, that, in general, children 
use the larger muscle groups earlier than those concerned in finely 
adjusted movements. It follows, therefore, that the large num- 
ber of finely adjusted movements required in making small 
letters accurately at an early age must result in a specialization 
of the smaller nerve and muscle centers long before their natural 
time of development. Poor writing and drawing, which nearly 
always appear in about the sixth grade, may be partly the 
effect of lack of harmony in development, produced by the pre- 
mature or excessive training of the finer muscle centers. 

In the more purely mental sphere there is general agreement 
among students of children that children form crude, indefinite 
ideas involving only a few of the most obvious acts of analysis 
and synthesis. These ideas become more exact and definite 
with increased experience, just as movements become more 
accurate and definite with practice. 

There can be no doubt, therefore, that the detailed analyses 
and exact definitions so often required of young children are 
opposed to the natural order of brain development, and therefore 
destructive of interest and disturbing to the natural processes 
of mental growth. 

As the science of child study progresses, such interference 
with the natural processes of physical and mental development 
should become less and less. In the meantime, children should 
have plenty of opportunity to get an all-round physical and 
mental development from their plays and games, as a correc- 
tive of whatever injurious specialization is being produced in 
school. 



PHYSICAL GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 45 

Exercises for Students 

1. If all children had their period of rapid growth at the same age, could 
the period of rapid growth be shorter generally in individuals than in the 
table? Since some children begin to grow rapidly earlier than others, may 
it be possible that individuals usually grow more rapidly and for a shorter 
time than appears from tables of average growth and yet the tables be cor- 
rect ? Compare the growth of yourself or others with tables and see if such 
is the case. 

2. Have pupils mention individuals of large or small size, and give prob- 
able cause. 

3. From observations and tables, report as many marked changes in size 
or shape of parts with age, also as many changes in physiological processes as 
possible. 

4. Give illustrations of growth of parts due to special exercise, or lack of 
growth due to want of exercise. Why do insurance companies ask the height 
and weight of those they insure ? 

5. Observe how very young children throw, and how they make the move- 
ments of scribbling when they first attempt to draw, as bearing on the ques- 
tion of what muscle centers develop first. 

Mention specifically school exercises that require too much fine muscular 
adjustment. Why is it more injurious to children than to adults to work in 
factories ? At what age is it best to begin giving special training only ? 

6. The body of an adult is 58.5 per cent water, that of an infant 74.7 
per cent, and of a fetus 94.5 per cent, while the amount of mineral matter in 
the bones of an infant is 2.24 per cent, and in an adult 7.29 per cent. What 
do these facts signify as regards growth and development ? Give others. 

7. May awkwardness and growing pains be explained by inequality in 
growth of parts, as of bones and tendons, and by want of proper relation 
between growth and development? 

Can you see how growth changes might produce changes in such habits as 
writing? 

Suggestions for Reading 

On growth, read Donaldson, Growth of the Brain: Porter, Am. Phys. Ed. 
Rev., Vol. II, pp. 155-173, or Trans. Acad. Set., St. Louis, 1893, Vol. VI, 
pp. 161-181 ; Gilbert, Yale Studies, Vol. II, pp. 40-100; Mrs. W. S. 
Hall, Ch. S. Mo., Vol. II, pp. 332-342 ; Christopher, Reports on Child- 
Study Investigations, reprints from the reports of the Chicago Board of 
Education for 1898-1899, 1899-1900, 1900-1901 ; Hastings, Manual, 



46 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

chaps, iii and iv, or N. E. A., 1899, pp. 1076-1084; Burk, Growth of 
Children in Height and Weight, p. 73, reprinted from Am. Jr. Psych., 
Vol. IX, pp. 253-326, and, if desired, other references given by Burk. 

On growth in relation to health, see Key, Pop. Sci. Mo., Vol. XXXVIII, 
p. 107 ; Christopher, Ch. S. Mo., Vol. Ill, pp. 324-335 ; Jr. Ch. and Ad., 
July, 1902, pp. 190-199; O'Shea, Jr. Ped., Vol. XI, pp. 299-316. 

On diffusion of impulses and the effects of exercise, see Davis, Yale Studies, 
Vol. VI, pp. 6-50, or Science (N. S.), Vol. X, p. 20; Johnson, Yale 
^/wJ^'e^, Vol. VI, pp. 51-103; Scripture, Yale Sttidies, Vol. II, pp. 114- 
119. 

On the natural order of development in relation to exercise, see Burk, Ped, 
Sem., Vol. VI, pp. 5-64 ; N. E. A., 1899, pp. 1067-1076 ; Patrick, Pop. 
Sci. Mo., Vol. LIV, pp. 382-391 ; Gulick, Pop. Sci. Mo., Vol. LIII, 
pp. 793-805; Bryan, Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. V, pp. 125-204; Hancock, 
Ped. Sem., Vol. Ill, pp. 9-29 ; Sargent, Am. Physical Ed. Rev., Vol. 
VIII, pp. 57-69 ; Gulick, Am. Physical Ed. Rev., Vol. VIII, pp. 70-74. 

On arrest of development, see Dawson, Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. XI, pp. 188- 
197 ; Harris, Education, Vol. XX, pp. 453-466. 

Later References 

A complete bibliography will be found in the U. S. Bureau of Education 
publication on Growth by B. T. Baldwin. No. 10, 1914. 



CHAPTER IV 

NATIVE ENDOWMENT OF SPECIAL INSTINCTS 

KINDS OF NATIVE MOVEMENTS 

Man can make machines that move about and do various 
kinds of work, but they all need a person to start and direct 
them. Nature, however, makes animal machines that move 
around and do various things without any one to superintend 
their movements. These animal machines must be self-running, 
self-repairing, and capable of moving so as to secure food and 
avoid danger. 

The movements necessary to change food into the energy that 
keeps the internal machinery in running order are carried on al- 
most wholly within the body, and are therefore called automatic. 
All the movements of the muscles of the lungs, heart, blood- 
vessels, and intestines concerned in the processes of respiration, 
circulation, and digestion are of this continuous, rhythmic, and 
self-perpetuating character. They depend mainly upon the 
relation of different parts of the organism to each other, and very 
sHghtly upon the relation of the organism to its environment. 

In breathing, the stimulus of the air varies with the movements 
of the lungs ; hence, the action is relatively constant and auto- 
matic. Such acts as walking are largely automatic since the 
movement of one limb serves as a stimulus to the motion of the 
other and thus walking continues without any fresh external 
stimulus. 

The movements involved in securing food and escaping danger, 
on the other hand, are partially or wholly originated by some- 

47 



48 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

thing in the surroundings. In other words, they are called 
forth by an external stimulus, and hence are not self-continuing 
or automatic. Some are simple or reflex, and others complex or 
instinctive. 

The simple or reflex movements are, as a rule, the response 
of a single part of the organism to a simple and not regularly 
repeated stimulus to that part. Examples are, the winking of 
the eye when the lid is touched, or jerking the hand away when 
it is pricked. Such movements occur whenever the appropriate 
stimulus is given, whatever the internal condition of the animal. 
The mechanism controlling them is very accurate, for just as 
the nickel-in-the-slot machine will not respond to a penny, so 
the hand will not be jerked away when touched, but only when 
injuriously stimulated, as by a prick or burn. All parts of the 
body are thus protected by reflex movements. 

The complex or instinctive movements are a response of the 
whole or a considerable part of the organism to some external 
stimulus, such as taking, chewing, and swallowing food, and the 
movements of avoiding danger by hiding, running, or fighting. 
These movements, though initiated by an appropriate stimulus 
as are reflexes, are to some extent dependent upon internal con- 
ditions or stimuli. An infant will suck whenever his lips are 
touched, if there is also the internal condition or stimulus of 
hunger, but not if the stomach is full or out of order ; and a hen 
will sit on a nest if she is in a broody condition, but not otherwise. 
Instinctive movements differ from reflex movements also in the 
fact that they are for the good of the whole body instead of for 
some one part. Winking the eye and jerking away the hand 
protect only the eye and hand, while taking food benefits not the 
mouth but the whole body, and running saves not merely the 
legs but the whole animal from danger. 

Instinctive movements, such as sucking, are not easily dis- 
tinguished from a combination of reflexes. When the tongue 



NATIVE ENDOWMENT OF SPECIAL INSTINCTS 49 

and lips of an infant are rendered sensitive by hunger, contact 
with any object causes them to close around it reflexively. This 
movement affects the breathing reflex and causes sucking move- 
ments. The stimulus of milk on the tongue and the throat calls 
forth the reflex movements of swaUowing. Loeb has thus 
analyzed a number of instincts into a series of reflexes, and it is 
probable that all instincts resemble a combination of reflexes 
in which the reaction of one part excites others, with the result 
that the animal acts as a whole and for the good of the whole. 

TWO VIEWS OF NATIVE REACTIONS 

According to the modern behavioristic view each animal is a 
mechanism for responding to external stimuli in ways character- 
istic of the species. Thorndike conceives of native movements 
as in the nature of many specific responses to various differing 
situations each of which is to be studied separately. For a close 
scientific analysis and study of behavior this view is favorable 
to the securing of definite and accurate data. Such infinity of 
detail is, however, confusing ; hence, there is good reason for 
making some sort of classification or grouping of these specific 
reactions, at least in presenting the matter to beginners. For 
instance, it is much easier to think of the reactions connected 
with the getting of food, the avoidance of danger or the securing 
of mates, in separate groups under a specific name, instead of 
considering each of the many reactions separately. 

Again it is not only simpler to thus view native reactions but 
it makes it possible for the scientist to interpret more successfully 
the data that he has collected regarding specific situations and 
responses. Figuratively speaking he can study the effect of 
forests on the landscape of life as well as observe individual trees. 
To the general principle of the survival value of special reactions 
may be added through classification, the idea of special needs to 
be met by certain groups of special reactions. 



50 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

Those who regard these needs to be met as of more importance 
than the specific character of the reaction make use of the term 
*' instinct" and designate by special names the various impulses 
to action that arise from the needs of the various species of ani- 
mals. According to this view instincts furnish the impulse to 
all forms of animal and human activity whether the movements 
which meet the ends needed for survival are native or acquired. 

Every living creature strives to secure food, and food of a cer- 
tain kind, animal or vegetable according to its structure. Each 
becomes restless and crawls, walks, swims, or flies about when 
hungry, and when food is found, seizes it in a more or less char- 
acteristic way. In the higher animals and especially in man 
there may develop a variety of ways of securing food and of 
getting it into the mouth. The specific native movements for 
taking food are instinctive in the stricter and more objective 
meaning of the word, but it is convenient not only to designate 
such movements as instinctive but also to regard the hunger 
impulse, more or less specialized for certain kinds of food and 
varying with the condition of the body, as an instinct leading 
to the learning of other specific modes of reaction. This view 
not only simplifies the thought of native movements but aids 
in interpreting them and helps to explain why so many new move- 
ments for satisfying needs are developed. Furthermore in study- 
ing the development of human beings this view helps to explain 
the new phases in the emotional and intellectual life at different 
ages and the resulting changes in conduct, as due to changing 
impulses arising from the variations in needs, as the other does 
not. 

One danger arising from this view is that many vaguely de- 
fined impulses shall be called instincts and no attempt made to 
analyze them and determine their exact nature and mode of 
manifestation. Another danger to be guarded against is that 
instincts shall be regarded as separate entities similar to the 



NATIVE ENDOWMENT OF SPECIAL INSTINCTS 51 

''faculties" of the older psychology, when in reality they are 
merely phases of the "will to live," which we isolate, in thought, 
from the whole of which they are a part, in order to simplify 
our problem. 

Internal impulses or instincts are always manifested in more 
or less definite and fixed forms of reaction to special situations, 
as well as in the general tendency to a variety of movements, and 
this should not be forgotten by those who use the term ''instinct." 
On the whole, the author beHeves that more of the truths of 
human development may be presented clearly and intelligently 
to students by a classification of native reactions under the head 
of fear instincts, social instincts, etc., and by emphasizing the 
inner impulses of children at different ages, than by an exclusive 
study of special situations and responses at different ages. The 
latter view should, however, receive as much attention from 
students as time and capacity permit. 

In one respect the difference between the two views of instinct 
is more than one of emphasis. In the "situation response" 
theory there seems to be little room for what may be called gen- 
eral responses either native or acquired. Yet there certainly 
are many instances of approach and avoidance that do not seem 
to be of a specific character. In the case of acquired movements 
this is especially marked. After a child has grasped several 
objects of varying shape in various positions, he has what may be 
called a general power of voluntary control which enables him 
to grasp a new object in a new position with considerable success. 
A person who has practiced writing with one hand only can 
write pretty well not only with the same hand in another position 
but with the other hand or with his foot or with his nose, the first 
time that he tries it. In the more complex activities of intellec- 
tual processes generalization is very prominent. The essential 
difference between these two views is, then, that according to 
one view there are only specific connections between parts, each 



52 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

of which makes specific responses possible, while according to 
the other theory there are at first general tendencies to response 
not specifically determined in character. Also, out of specific 
responses to situations develop general powers of response. 

From the physiological point of view the claim that native 
tendencies and movements are general as well as special finds 
support. 

It is a fundamental principle of nerve physiology that the 
excitation of any nerve center, especially if it is intense and pro- 
longed, is diffused to other parts and ultimately to the whole of 
the nervous system. The chief preventive of general and free 
spreading of nervous impulses at first is differentiation dependent 
on instincts. These make certain lines of discharge to muscles 
more open. Some paths of discharge are so open in young 
animals and children that specific reflex and instinctive move- 
ments are made at once, while others are less open and are used 
only slightly if at all, except when the need is not met by the 
first movements. Continued excitement gives rise to various 
movements toward escaping or securing food, some of which are 
definite and others of a more indefinite chance character. Any 
movement that proves successful is likely to be made again when 
the same circumstances recur and thus habits of reacting in 
specific ways are developed. In all learning there is some spread- 
ing of excitation and incipient movements of various parts; 
hence there is always some development of general control of 
muscles while specific movements are being learned. In the 
cortex of the brain during mental operations there is probably 
much more spreading of excitation from centers of more intense 
activity to all parts of the brain so that there is a good deal of 
general development resulting from special activity of parts. 

The phenomena of mental grasp, ''fringes of consciousness, '^ 
associations of similarity, classification, and generalization can- 
not be explained on the theory of specific connections only. 



NATIVE ENDOWMENT OF SPECIAL INSTINCTS 53 

There is therefore good ground in the facts of physiology and of 
conscious processes for believing that instinctive needs dependent 
upon bodily structure and conditions may result not only in 
some specific reactions, but also in many indefinite movements, 
and that, on the other hand, all learning of specific things results 
in some development of general power of doing those and other 
things. The stimulus and response theory is therefore an im- 
portant but only a partial explanation of what takes place in 
instinctive and habitual reactions. There are always other 
reactions actual and incipient which constitute a reserve of gen- 
eral power and tendency. 

In another respect modern physiology is unfavorable to the 
theory of special responses dependent upon the connection 
between nerve cells. It is becoming more and more evident 
that there are certain physiological norms peculiar to each species 
of animal which vary somewhat with age but are only slightly 
influenced by external conditions. Among these norms are 
the bodily temperature, the pulse rate and blood pressure, the 
character of the unexpired air in the lungs and certain chemical 
conditions of the blood. It is also known that action is modified 
not only by drugs but also by the activity of ductless glands 
and their products. These facts and the changes in the char- 
acter of the blood accompanying emotional excitement all give 
good ground for believing that the instincts of each species of 
animal are closely related to its physiological norms. These 
norms are also doubtless the basis of trophisms and of native 
emotional reactions. 

INSTINCTS AND STRUCTURE 

The relation of instinct to intelligence or reason has long 
attracted wondering attention, but until recently little notice 
was taken of the relation of physical structure to instinct. When 
the matter is once suggested, however, no extended observation 



54 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

is needed to show that the instincts of any animal correspond 
to its structure. Cats do not try to fly or dive when chased by 
dogs, nor ducks to climb trees or fight with their claws. Turtles 
do not attempt to run from danger, or rabbits to curl up in their 
skins for protection. The peculiar structure of teeth and stomach 
in cows goes with a strong instinct to eat grass, and in the lion, 
with an equally strong instinct to eat meat. 

Even in the life of the same animals new instincts develop as 
new structures are formed or perfected. Birds do not show the 
flying instinct until their wings develop, nor the nesting instinct 
until they are ready to produce young. Before their teeth and 
claws are developed, young lions avoid, rather than attack, large 
animals. 

There is a good reason, therefore, for believing that every 
instinct of each species of animals has its basis in some peculiarity 
of structure and some bodily condition. A sHght difference 
in beak, claw, or wing of birds often makes a vast difference in 
the form in which the instinct to catch food, sleep, build nests, 
or escape danger, shall be manifested, while the character of the 
digestive organs and their secretions greatly influences the food 
reactions. A bird with the bill of a humming-bird and the 
instinct of a flycatcher, or one with the instinct of a woodpecker 
and the beak of a grosbeak, would be at a serious disadvantage 
in securing food. 

Sometimes the difference in the actions of two species of ani- 
mals is not easily accounted for by observation of external dif- 
ferences in structure, but in those cases a fuller knowledge of 
the internal anatomy of the animals, especially of the glandular 
and the nervous system, would probably reveal the basis of 
the difference. Every instinctive act therefore presupposes a 
mechanism and a bodily condition appropriate to its perform- 
ance and in young animals these must be developed before the 
instinct appears. 



NATIVE ENDOWMENT OF SPECIAL INSTINCTS 55 
INSTINCT AND CONSCIOUSNESS 

We all know that the automatic movements are carried on 
without consciousness. The apparatus for these movements 
works best when not interfered with by consciousness. A Httle 
attention to the matter will also show us that the reflex move- 
ments of the eye and the withdrawal of the hand are the results 
of a definite mechanism which works without being started by 
consciousness. In fact, it is almost impossible for consciousness 
to prevent such movements even when they are foreseen. It is 
true that the fact of a stimulus being received and responded to 
by the hand or eyelid, is usually reported to consciousness, but 
this is after rather than before the movement begins. 

That instinctive movements are also dependent upon mechanism 
rather than consciousness is not always so readily admitted. 
Yet the person who jumps at a loud sound or the sudden ap- 
pearance of a frightful object, often says he cannot help it, and 
a moment after the fright may laugh at his own foolishness. 
When a cat races after a ball or a mouse, he does not think he 
wants it before trying to catch it, but the sight of the moving 
object sets the chasing apparatus in motion at once. In the same 
way the sight of a hawk excites the mechanism for making 
danger signals in the hen, and this sound causes the crouching 
and keeping-quiet apparatus to work in the young chicks. Per- 
sons and animals do not have to learn to do these things any 
more than they have to learn to breathe, and when performed 
suddenly they are just as independent of consciousness. 

The mechanical character of reflex and instinctive reactions 
is well illustrated by the fact that a decapitated snake will coil 
around a red-hot iron as readily as around a stick. In this, as 
in other cases, there is evidently a definite mechanism which is 
set in operation by a certain stimulus or any stimulus like it. 
The dependence of instinctive movements upon structure rather 



56 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

than consciousness is also shown with remarkable clearness by 
Jennings's experiments upon paramecia, one of the simpler forms 
of animal life. Their great activity in moving around, taking 
particles of food, gathering in companies, approaching CO2 and 
avoiding acids, gives the impression that their movements are 
directed by consciousness, and that they exercise choice. Care- 
ful experiment and observation, however, show that it is chiefly 
a matter of mechanism. Their cilia are in almost continual 
motion, and thus their bodies are driven forward. If they ap- 
proach acid, the ciHa reverse, and thus they back off from that 
injurious substance. If, however, the acid is made to approach 
them from behind, the effect is the same upon the cilia, and 
instead of moving away from the fatal substance they enter it. 
CO2 has the opposite effect upon the cilia, consequently when 
moving forward they enter and remain in drops of that. Choice 
of food is also lacking, for they take in every small particle they 
touch, whether it has food value or not. Careful observation 
thus shows that all their actions are largely mechanical. 

Loeb has in a similar way analyzed the instincts of a number 
of animals into mechanical reflexes. The apparatus for stinging 
is in the last segment of the abdomen of a bee and works success- 
fully when separated from the rest of the body if the under side 
is touched. 

Fixed instincts, in man, work almost mechanically, as do many 
habits. Not only does consciousness not direct the activity, 
but so long as everything goes smoothly, there is little or no 
consciousness. Where acts are to be repeated over and over, 
and the same kind of movement made in response to the same 
stimulus, consciousness is unnecessary. It is only when several 
modes of response are possible that conscious activity is of any 
use. Such activity then distinguishes the different possibilities 
and chooses the one that past experience has shown will give 
the most desirable results. When a new animal is seen by another, 



NATIVE ENDOWMENT OF SPECIAL INSTINCTS 57 

the possibilities of friendly advance, of hasty retreat, or of 
vigorous pursuit are suggested, and consciousness decides in the 
light of past experience with similar animals which form of re- 
action shall be made. If, however, the animal which appears 
is a hereditary enemy of superior power, the action of fleeing is 
mechanically performed with very little consciousness, unless 
flight is in some way impeded, when other possibilities, such as 
fighting, hiding, or feigning death, are suggested. 

An animal having only one possibility of response in a given 
situation could make no use of consciousness. Only those 
animals which are sufficiently complex to have more than one 
mode of response to a given stimulus can profit by conscious 
intelhgence. It is reasonable, therefore, to suppose that instead 
of consciousness making new movements possible, the acquisition 
of new possibiHties of movement helps to develop conscious 
intelligence, especially in animals and children. With much 
truth, therefore, we may say that man makes many movements, 
not because of his great intelligence, but that he has great in- 
telligence because of his many possibilities of movement. The 
marvelous skill of the bee in constructing his comb according 
to the best engineering principles is probably due, not to his 
intelhgence, but to his mechanical structure, which renders it 
less easy or perhaps impossible for him to build otherwise. 

Instincts, in so far as they are purely instinctive, are always 
bUnd. Speaking figuratively, it is only when two instinctive 
tendencies are aroused by a stimulus that the eye of conscious 
intelhgence is opened to choose in the Hght of past experience 
the most favorable reaction. 

In the case of animals like fishes and insects with only a few 
fixed instincts, the light of experience often reveals to the dim 
eye of consciousness but one mode of response, and the baited 
hook is again taken or the scorching light again approached. 

In higher animals, like chickens and children, a single flash 



58 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

from past experience, such as the unpleasant feeling of a furry 
caterpillar to the bill, or of a hot stove to the hand, may reveal 
to the clearer eye of consciousness a new and more desirable 
mode of reaction than that first used. The fewer the experiences 
needed to produce the change in the reaction necessary to 
secure the most favorable results, and the longer the time before 
the light enkindled by past experience is extinguished, the greater 
is the intelligence in animal or child. 

Not extraordinary skill in doing the same thing in the same 
way all through life, by one generation after another, as in the 
case of animals with fixed instincts, but ability to act in a variety 
of ways and to learn quickly by experience, is evidence of intel- 
ligence. Man has more instincts than any other animal ; but 
the variety of action possible to him, and the modifications pro- 
duced by experience, make it seem as if he had none. We must 
remember, however, that his purely instinctive actions are just 
as blind as those of the bee, and that consciousness is useful only 
after there has been experience, and when there is a possibility 
of more than one reaction. 

Conscious processes are most distinctive in that they faciHtate 
the reversal of the usual relations between stimulus and reaction. 
Animals experience a need and are confronted with a stimulus, 
then react in an appropriate way. Man, in voluntary action, 
images the result to be gained, then acts. He represents many 
of the needs and situations to be met and performs the necessary 
actions of preparing food, guarding against danger, providing 
for the protection of offspring, etc., before reaction is necessary, 
because he can substitute conscious images or representations 
of needs and situations for the real ones, much better than can 
animals. The acts of animals are often anticipatory, but they 
possess little of man's facility for consciously representing past 
and future conditions and actions; hence, animals necessarily 
live and act chiefly in the present. 



NATIVE ENDOWMENT OF SPECIAL INSTINCTS 59 

CONDITIONS AFFECTING THE USEFULNESS OF INSTINCTS 

Evidently every species of animal which does not in general 
act for its own good would, in the struggle for existence, soon 
become extinct ; hence instincts are in general useful. What is 
for the good of a young animal depends upon (i) structure of 
the animal, (2) its surroundings, (3) its temporary bodily con- 
dition, (4) its age, and (5) the instincts of its parents. 

(i) If dogs had the instinct to dive when threatened with 
danger, and fish to jump out on dry land, neither would long 
survive as a species. If the puny rabbit had the fighting in- 
stinct of the bulldgg instead of the running instinct of the deer, 
his career would have been cut short long before this. This 
merely emphasizes the truth already stated, that instinct must 
conform to structure in every species of animal. 

(2) What form of action is favorable depends upon the en- 
vironment. Birds in the south need to go north when it gets 
warmer ; but if they are in the north, they need to go south when 
it gets colder. If the climate is too wet for an animal, he needs 
an instinct that impels him to seek dry places ; but if it is too 
dry, he should have an^ instinctive tendency to seek water. 
Some animals have two filed types of instincts with action suited 
to the two kinds of environment . with which they are likely to 
come in contact. All muskrat houses built in pools are on the 
same general plan, while a different, but equally constant form 
is used when the nests are built in streams. 

Those instincts of animals which are useful to them in their 
natural environment may become destructive to them when 
the environment is changed suddenly by geological agencies or 
by the entrance of man. Thus lights destroy countless insects 
and birds, and man makes use of the curiosity of animals con- 
cerning strange motionless objects, in luring them to destruction, 
and of the feeding instinct, to attract them by baits to his hooks 



6o FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

and traps. Those animals which most quickly adapt themselves 
to these changes in environment are the ones which survive in 
spite of man's cunning attacks. Every instinct must have de- 
veloped in an environment where it was useful ; but if the present 
environment is different, the instinct may be useless or injurious, 
and thus handicap or destroy instead of help to preserve. 

If individual animals of slightly different structure, aided by 
their readiness in profiting by experience and possibly assisted by 
chance, vary their actions and develop successful ways of meeting 
the new situations in their changed environment, they survive 
and produce descendants, while the others soon perish. Thus 
may a species be modified in structure while either a new form of 
instinctive action is established as a characteristic of the species, 
or the quality of individual adaptability, which is the chief 
element in intelligent action, is increased. 

(3) The condition of the animal at the moment also determines 
the usefulness of his actions. An animal which would turn 
away from food when his stomach was empty, and eat it when 
his stomach was already filled, would not long survive. A deer 
which had a strong impulse to fight just after shedding his horns 
instead of when they were well grown and firm, would be at a 
disadvantage in preserving himself and his species. 

(4) It is evident that an animal when young and helpless and 
with parents to care for it needs to follow a different course of 
action from that required when well grown and dependent upon 
its own exertions for food and safety; while when mature and 
with young to care for, its instinctive action must be such that 
the species will be perpetuated. It follows, therefore, that to 
be useful, instincts must be adapted to different ages, as well 
as to differences in structure, bodily condition, and environment. 

(5) It has been found that in general an animal at its birth 
has just enough instincts to preserve its life with the aid of the 
complementary instincts of its parents. For example, parent 



NATIVE ENDOWMENT OF SPECIAL INSTINCTS 6i 

robins have an instinctive tendency to carry food and put it into 
the mouths of their young; hence young robins need only to 
open the mouth when the parent robin approaches. The young 
chicken, however, has the instinct to approach and peck at food, 
since the mother hen has only the instinct to find and call atten- 
tion to it. The human infant needs and has at birth few instincts, 
because the human parent has the instinctive tendency to care 
for it strongly developed. Later, various instincts come into 
prominence as they are needed. 

FIXED AND INDEFINITE INSTINCTS 

Evidently instincts are useful just so far as they successfully 
adjust the action of an animal to the condition imposed by its 
environment, in such a way as to preserve the individual and 
produce descendants. The actions which are always or nearly 
always useful to an animal of a certain structure in all environ- 
ments, as, for example, those of gathering honey and building 
combs by bees, and web spinning and fly catching by spiders, 
are comparatively though not absolutely fixed and unchange- 
able ; while actions whose usefulness depends upon special cir- 
cumstances are usually general and indefinite in character. The 
young chicken has a fixed mode of drinking which is different 
from that of the duck, for instance, but its instinct to follow 
moving objects is more general, since it may be specialized into 
a tendency to follow a person or a dog as well as to follow a hen. 
The general instinct of fear is usually manifested in the form of 
fear of any strange object that is in any way exciting, and ex- 
perience speciaHzes this into fear of particular animals, as cats 
of dogs and mice of cats. The fear shown by hens when hawks 
sail over is probably general rather than special, since any large 
bird or even an object passing quickly overhead, excites it. 

Through the experience of the ages and natural selection, 
nature has prepared her children to act in such a way that in 



62 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

a majority of cases they and their descendants will be preserved, 
though in exceptional cases the action may prove fatal. Where 
the chances are nearly equal as to what forms of reaction to cer- 
tain stimuli will be favorable, the instinct is plastic, so that the 
best mode of reaction in the present environment may be devel- 
oped by imitation and by the individual's own experience. 
Even quite fixed instincts need to be and are somewhat plastic, 
so that there may be ready adaptation to changes in environ- 
ment. In past ages it was universally advantageous for' fish 
to take all worms and grasshoppers dropping into the stream; 
but when man came on the scene with hooks, the instinct often 
had bad results. The native instinct to snap at every worm 
when hungry has not been destroyed ; but the more intelligent 
fish seem to have had the instinct modified by experience, as 
many fishermen can testify. 

We therefore find some instincts that are perfect at birth, 
and unchanging throughout thousands of generations of the 
species, and others so imperfect at first and so variable in form 
that they can scarcely be distinguished from voluntary acts 
developed by individual experience. In general, the fixed in- 
stincts are more prominent in lower animals, and the indefinite 
in the higher. This is not so much because the higher animal 
has no definite instincts, but because he has so many general, 
indefinite, or undeveloped ones. 

CONTINUOUS, TRANSIENT, AND PERIODIC INSTINCTS 

Since the structure of an animal and the usefulness of any 
form of action vary with age, we should expect that the instincts 
of any given species of animals would not be equally strong at 
all times. Observation confirms this view. Some instincts, 
like the feeding and fear instincts, are present at birth and last 
all through life, though usually they are more prominent at some 
times than at others. 



NATIVE ENDOWIMENT OF SPECIAL INSTINCTS 63 

Other instincts, like that of play, are not present at birth, but 
after they appear, continue to be manifested all through Hfe or 
nearly so, though usually in a diminishing degree. The in- 
stinct of chickens to follow is a transient one, entirely disappear- 
ing in a short time if not developed by experience. 

Other instincts appear at regular intervals, as at the migrating 
season or when caring for young, and are therefore in a certain 
degree rhythmic or periodic. 

The chief problem which child study has to solve is to determine 
the time at which each instinct of man is naturally most prom- 
inent. This being done, the problem of the educator is to apply 
the right stimuh at the right time, so as to produce the most 
perfect and rapid development along desirable lines. 

GENERAL PRINCIPLES DETERMINING THE ORDER OF 
DEVELOPMENT OF INSTINCTS 

In the plant world the order of development — leaves, stalk, 
blossom, fruit — is very definite and fixed. In the animal 
world the growth of parts of the body and the appearance of 
hair, horns, etc., are fixed and nearly as unvarying. Since 
structure and instinct are closely related, we should expect to 
find a definite order in which the instincts of each species of 
animal tend to develop. Observation confirms this view in a 
general way, as young animals do not show the mating, migrat- 
ing, nest-con^i£iu:ting, and care-taking instincts of adult animals, 
nor adult animals the same degree of playfulness as the younger 
ones. When, however, we attempt to determine exactly the order 
in which instincts develop, many difiiculties arise. 

The most common theoretical statement of the order in which 
instincts develop is that they appear in the order in which they 
have been acquired in the history of the race, from the lowest 
forms up. This view is supported by the general biological law 
discovered in the study of embryology, that in the embryonic 



64 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

state each animal goes through stages of development in which 
it is successively similar in form or proportion of parts to a higher 
and still higher animal, till it attains the form of its species. 
There are also numerous parallelisms that can be pointed out 
in the development of a child after birth to that of the human 
race since it has become human. This law of race and indi- 
vidual development is supposed to apply not so much to the 
first appearance of the various instincts as to the time of 
their greatest prominence. It is now given less weight than 
formerly. 

There are two other theoretical considerations, however, that 
should receive attention. In the first place, those instincts 
which have been most universally useful to all species of animals 
in all ages, rather than the oldest, should be the strongest. For 
example, the swimming instinct is probably one of the oldest 
instincts, but it has been of little use among many species of ani- 
mals, hence it is not strong in all young animals. The instinct 
to withdraw from an unfavorable stimulus has, however, been 
useful to all animals in all stages of development ; hence, it is 
universally present and prominent in young animals. 

Again, we have noted the truth that different instincts are 
needed at different stages of development. If instincts developed 
in the same order in the individual as in the race, in any species 
of animals, that species probably would not long survive, since 
the reproductive and care-taking instincts are useful to the species 
only when they appear in mature animals. Hence, though the 
parental instinct is one of the oldest instincts, it is yet one of 
the latest to become prominent in individual development. 

The idea that instincts need to vary with age is probably the 
most important general principle in giving an understanding 
of the order in which the various instincts develop. 



NATIVE ENDOWMENT OF SPECIAL INSTINCTS 65 
CAUSES OF DIFFERENCES IN INDIVIDUALS OF THE SAME SPECIES 

Since the appearance of instincts depends upon structure and 
physiological conditions, especially nutritive, an animal must 
be in good normal condition to show forth at the proper time 
feeding, playing, fighting, and sexual instincts. Any variation 
in the health conditions of an individual will therefore greatly 
modify his instinctive development. 

Since instincts depend also upon outer stimuli, the appropriate 
stimulus must be presented at the time when, because of the 
internal bodily conditions, the instinct is ripe, or the instinctive 
reaction may never appear. For example, the swimming in- 
stinct does not appear in ducks except in the presence of water, 
and perhaps not without actual contact of the whole body with 
it. For this reason environment may favor the development 
of some instincts at certain times much more than at others. If 
the proper stimulus is never given, or if the instinctive tendency 
is transient, as is sometimes the case, the instinct may never 
appear. For example, the instinct of burying bones shown by 
most dogs either does not appear, or appears only a few times if, 
while young, they are kept constantly on boards. It is doubtful 
if chickens would scratch if kept all the time on a smooth 
floor with no unevenness as stimulus to their feet. Neither 
are they likely to follow unless the instinct to do so has exercise 
during the first few weeks. 

Although most instincts are stronger at certain ages or at 
certain times of the year than at others, yet most of them con- 
tinue to exist in some degree during the whole life of the animal, 
both before their evident appearance, and after the instinctive 
tendency ceases to play a prominent part in the actions of the 
animal. Some instincts vary but little in strength all through 
life ; yet even these may develop in quite different ways in dif- 
ferent animals of the same species because of early experience. 



66 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

For example, the feeding instinct is always present, but animals 
and persons in certain localities get into the habit of eating cer- 
tain things and no longer have an impulse to try any other kind 
of food when it is presented, though when young they would 
have taken it as readily as what they now feed upon exclusively. 
The feeding instinct is specialized, yet, if hungry and unable 
to get their habitual food, such animals and persons take new 
foods which ordinarily they would not touch. It is even 
claimed that ponies in some localities feed on fish. 

It is evident that, with all these complications, the most com- 
mon and natural order of development of instincts in animals 
is very difficult to determine. The problem is still harder in 
children, who have so many instincts, most of which are, during 
a long period, easily modified by special conditions. Something, 
however, has been determined, as will be indicated later. 

CLASSIFICATION OF INSTINCTS 

In attempting to classify instincts it is not possible to classify 
them according to the nature of the stimulus or the kind of move- 
ments made, or the bodily or mental states of the animals, for 
these are all so various that they cannot be grouped under a few 
heads. Again, those features are not of universal significance, 
since what is a useful stimulus or movement to one animal is 
harmful to another. Since all instincts owe their existence to 
their usefulness, the uses subserved by the various instincts 
should be the basis of classification. To a considerable extent 
all animals have the same general needs ; hence, a classification 
based on the ends gained by instinctive acts will apply to all forms 
of animal life, including man. 

(i) All tendencies to action which have for their primary end 
the good of the individual may be called individualistic or self- 
preservative instincts. The most fundamental and universal 
form of this instinct is shown in the tendency to contract the body 



NATIVE ENDOWMENT OF SPECIAL INSTINCTS 67 

and withdraw from unfavorable stimuli, and expand or approach 
toward favorable ones. 

In its most primitive form the tendency to approach favorable 
and recede from unfavorable stimuli is found only in the tendency 
to move so as to increase favorable or decrease unfavorable stimuli 
already being received. For example, all animals, and even plants 
to some extent, move toward or away from light, heat, chemical 
and mechanical stimuli, so as to get more or less of them accord- 
ing to the nature of their organism. This is known as trophism. 
Besides this tendency, which is universal in all animals, from 
the highest to the lowest, most animals have a disposition to 
move about and to react in appropriate ways in response to 
certain stimuli, before there is any chance to experience their 
favorable or unfavorable character in even a slight degree. 

The chief ends subserved by the individualistic instincts are 
the securing of food, and the avoidance or defeat of enemies. 
The chief forms of this instinct may be designated as the feedings 
fearing, and fighting instincts. 

(2) If animals (except the lowest, which are without sex and 
multiply by division) had no instincts except those connected 
with self-preservation, there would be only one generation of 
each kind. To live as a species, animals must have instincts im- 
pelling them to produce and care for young, as well as those 
impelling them to preserve their own lives. Not only must they 
have these instincts, but in most animals at certain times the 
racial instinct must be stronger than the individuaHstic instinct, 
so that animals with young will deny themselves food and risk 
their lives to feed and defend their offspring from danger, other- 
wise the species would not continue to exist. 

All actions, therefore, which have for their primary end the 
producing of young, and preparing for and taking care of them, 
are classed under racial instincts. Hence, under this head we 
may include, with the more obvious actions, those less directly 



68 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

related to the perpetuation of the species, such as singing, self- 
exhibition, fighting for mates, and nest building. 

(3) Many lower animals, such as bees and ants, always live 
in colonies, and have instincts which impel them to act primarily 
for the good of the group to which they belong, and only indirectly 
for the good of themselves or their species. In many instances 
there are in each group several different types of individuals with 
corresponding differences in instincts. In the case of bees and 
ants there are nearly always three or more types in each commu- 
nity. Some of the higher animals, such as wolves and cattle, go 
in groups a part or all of the time, and cooperate in securing food 
and escaping danger. In so doing they act not merely for their 
own good and for the good of their species as represented in their 
young, but for the good of the group to which they belong. All 
kinds of actions in response to the stimulus of one's own kind 
may be regarded as social. 

The predominance of man over other animals is due in no 
small part to the greater tendency of men to arrange themselves 
in groups, and cooperate for the common good in attack and 
defense. 

(4) Since all the higher animals come into the world in an un- 
finished state, they need to be and are very plastic to surrounding 
forces which develop and mould them so that they become 
capable of surviving and making their own living in the environ- 
ment into which they are born. Mere clay-like plasticity to 
outside impressions, however, is not sufficient. During infancy, 
when the young creature is protected, he is active in ways that 
prepare him for the serious situations that he must meet when 
no longer protected by parents. The young animal not only 
adapts himself to his environment by responding to the stimuli 
he receives, in ways most favorable to himself, but he actively 
seeks stimuli and repeats actions when their former stimuli are 
not affecting him. This inner tendency to actively increase the 



NATIVE ENDOWMENT OF SPECIAL INSTINCTS 69 

number of stimuli and reactions is the basis of the adaptive in- 
stincts, the chief forms of which are imitation, plcLJ, and curiosity. 

Imitation may be defined in a general way as the tendency to 
repeat what has been perceived, especially the sounds and move- 
ments made by others of the same species. In imitation there 
is an outer stimulus that calls forth a movement producing to 
some extent the same stimulus. It is evident that this tendency 
is often of direct use to an animal in adapting itself to its surround- 
ings ; for the young animal that imitates his elders (which are 
already adapted to their environment), in seeking shelter, select- 
ing food, and avoiding enemies, is much more likely to survive 
than the one who must learn what is good for him from his own 
chance experiences, any one of which may result fatally. The 
advantages to the child who has so much to learn are still greater ; 
hence, he is the most imitative of all young animals. 

Play, or the tendency to perform acts for their own sake rather 
than for the ends to be gained by them, is of direct use to all 
immature animals because it gives practice in performing acts 
before there is any serious need for their performance, or any 
dangerous results from imperfect performance. It is evident 
that animals which play at chasing and fighting when young 
will have a great advantage in the struggle for existence, when 
they have to make their own way in life, over those that have 
not played in youth. Surplus energy tends to flow out along 
old racial channels as fast as their beginnings are developed in 
the young animal. Every instinctive tendency is therefore mani- 
fested in play, and is thus perfected for future use. Surplus 
energy is a favorable condition for play, but what is played at 
any time is determined largely by the degree of development 
and the relative prominence of the instincts which are not needed 
for serious purposes. 

Curiosity, unlike imitation and play, is concerned more with 
the securing of sensations than with modes of action. It is an 



70 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

intellectual hunger, an impulse to secure and test new sensations. 
An animal that possesses it soon comes in contact with all phases 
of his environment, and examines every new thing as it appears, 
before attempting to eat, attack, or run away from it. It is 
quite evident that under natural conditions a young animal 
with curiosity will become adapted to its environment much 
sooner than one without such an instinct. 

It is not too much to say that curiosity is the basis of a large 
share of the intellectual development in animals and in man. 
Every new thing introduced into a familiar environment is a 
stimulus to curiosity, and every new relation of object or idea 
to other famihar ones is equally effective in man ; hence curiosity 
is to the intellect what appetite is to the body — a cause of 
growth and development. 

(5) It is not easy to demonstrate clearly the existence of 
regulative instincts, though good general grounds for affirming 
their usefulness and their existence in man are easily found. 
Evidently, every species of animal that is to survive must conform 
to the laws of nature and the environment in which it lives. 
Every organism must conform to the laws of rhythmic, seasonal 
changes imposed by the sun; hence a tendency to conform to 
constant environing conditions, or, in other words, to act ac- 
cording to law, has naturally developed. Again, the several 
varieties of instincts often impel to opposing actions, and the 
tendency is for the strongest and most quickly acting instinct 
to determine action, although safety for the individual and species 
may lie in the direction of the action suggested by a more slowly 
acting instinct. In such cases a tendency to pause before acting 
and give slower instincts time to awaken and exercise their 
rightful influence would be of advantage. Something to make 
the instincts work together for the good of the animal and its 
species would evidently be useful. 

Such an instinct probably exists, in man at least, in the moral 



NATIVE ENDOWMENT OF SPECIAL INSTINCTS 71 

tendency to conform to law and to act for the good of others 
as well as self, and in the religious tendency to regard a Higher 
Power. This instinct gives rise to a feeling that one ought to 
act in conformity with certain laws fixed by the experience of 
the race, or by customs and habits of groups of individuals, 
and to a feeling of reverence and awe in the presence of the 
Power back of these laws. 

(6) Actions for the attainment of the various ends already 
enumerated, and numerous combinations and oppositions of 
ends and means of attainment, give rise to many tendencies to 
action and feeHng that are not easily classified under any of the 
previously named heads. Among the most prominent of these 
impulses and associated feelings are : (i) the tendency to collect 
objects of various kinds and to enjoy their ownership ; (2) the 
tendency to construct or destroy and the pleasure of being a 
power or a cause ; (3) the tendency to express mental states to 
others of the species and to take pleasure in such expression; 
(4) the tendency to adornment and to the making of beautiful 
things and the aesthetic pleasure of contemplating such objects. 

Exercises for Students 

1. As a machine, how does an animal differ from other machines? 

2. Do acquired movements ever become nearly as automatic as breath- 
ing? Illustrate. 

3. Give examples of instinctive and of reflex movements. 

4. Illustrate the fact that structure and instinct correspond not only in 
different animals, but also in the same animals at different times. How can 
naturalists infer the instincts of extinct animals by examining their bones ? 

5. Are there any acts that you can perform better when not thinking 
of them? What kind .of acts are they? 

6. Why does an architect need to be more intelligent than a mason, or a 
squirrel more intelligent than a fish ? 

7. When is a deer probably most conscious and fearful, when fleeing 
from danger or when cornered ? 

8. Give several illustrations of learning from few experiences by animals 
or children as evidence of intelligence. 



72 



FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 



9. Give illustrations of the various conditions affecting the usefulness of 
instincts. 

10. Give examples of fixed and of indefinite instincts. 

11. Give illustrations of transient or periodic instincts. 

12. Give some parallels between the development of the child and the race. 

13. Illustrate how the instincts of individuals may be modified by acci- 
dental causes. 

14. Give illustrations of each class of instinct. 

Suggestions for Reading 

The best chapter on instinct is in James's Psychology, and one of the best 

popular books on the subject is Chadbourne's Instinct. All books on 

animals treat of the subject. 
The following chapters bear on the nature and use of instincts: Morgan, 

Animal Life and Intelligence, chap, xi; Romanes, Mental Evolution in 

Animals, chap, xi; Wundt, Human and Animal Psychology, chaps. 

xxvi and xxvii ; Marshall, Instinct and Reason, chap, iii ; Baldwin, Vol. 

I, chap, viii ; Jordan and Kellogg, Animal Life, chaps, xiv and xv. 
The relation of instinct to consciousness and intelligence is discussed ably 

in Morgan, Animal Life and Intelligence, chap, xii, and Comparative 

Psychology, chap, xii; Minot, Pop. Sci. Mo., Vol. LXI, pp. 289-303; 

Baldwin, Vol. I, pp. 208-214; Watkins, Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. XI, pp. 

166-180. 
The mechanism of reflex and instinctive movements is discussed by Jennings, 

Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. X, pp. 503-515, and in Loeb's Physiology of the 

Brain. 
On the general order of development read Vincent, The Social Mind 

and Education, pp. 66-90; Swift, Jr. Ped., Vol. XII, pp. 295-303; 

Guillet, Ped. Sem., Vol. VII, pp. 397-445. 

Later References 
Books 
Mc Indoo 
Mills 
Mitchell 
Parmlee 

Partridge (i & 2) 
Pyle 



Bolton 

Chamberlain (i) 

Drummond 

Forbush 

Gesell 

Hall, G. S. (i) 

Kirkpatrick (i & 2) 



Sandiford 

Shepherd 

Swift (i & 2) 

Tanner 

Thorndike (i, 3 & 8) 

Watson 



CHAPTER V 

MODIFICATION OF NATIVE ENDOWMENTS 

NURTURE AND DEVELOPMENT 

The native endowments of the individual at birth are only 
possibilities and these become realities in greater or less degree 
according as the environment furnishes conditions and stimuli 
for their development. This environment must supply at least 
the essentials for maintaining life. In addition to this, human 
beings especially are provided with numerous mental stimuli. 
These come primarily through the senses. These stimuli are 
provided by the material objects of nature and art and by living 
creatures, especially those of one's own species. 

These stimuli are effective in calling forth activity and in 
producing development not merely in proportion to the objective 
strength of the stimuli, but in accordance with the special sensi- 
tiveness produced by the internal conditions of body and mind 
at the time. When one has eaten to repletion, the strongest food 
stimuli become weak ; and when one knows nothing of plants, a 
lecture regarding them may be a bore. 

Persons in the same surroundings are not receiving the same 
nurture, for as their natures differ so does their influential environ- 
ment. Just as potatoes and pumpkins may be produced in the 
same soil, so persons differing greatly in character may develop 
in the same community and even in the same home. 

Circumstances of a more or less chance character also play a 
considerable part. Except in the case of twins the effect of a 
given stimulus is likely to be different because the ages differ, 

73 



74 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

and with age, instincts and experiences. One child may be 
deHghted and the other terrified by the sudden appearance of a 
big black dog. Even in the case of twins if one first sees the 
dog when it is quiet and he is in the presence of others, while to 
the other it suddenly appears when he is alone, the effects will 
be different, not only at the time but in the future when similar 
stimuli are received. 

Environment begins to act as soon as one is born and con- 
tinues its influence all through life. The development of an 
individual may be modified by changing his surroundings. 
These changes will be effective in proportion as the individual 
is or is not sensitive, because of ripening instincts or previous 
experience, to the particular portion of the environment changed. 
Means may also be taken to call attention to special features of 
the environment and thus make them effective influences. 

Young animals and children are always protected to a greater 
or less extent from many phases of the life about them. To 
children, parents and schools are a more or less artificial environ- 
ment, while to both young and old, social customs, especially 
in the group to which one belongs, call attention to certain kinds 
of stimuli and encourage certain kinds of responses to each type 
of experience. 

INSTINCTS AND LEARNING 

In all living things growth is from what already exists. In the 
plant the roots and stalk come from the seed, the branches from 
the stalk, the leaves from the buds; and each new phase of 
development in the plant depends upon and is the outcome of the 
preceding stages. In a similar way does all learning take place. 
It begins in the modification of instinctive acts and each new stage 
of learning is the outgrowth of previous acquirement. Learning 
is a process of modifying the instinctive actions in becoming 
adapted to the special environment affecting the organism. 



MODIFICATION OF NATIVE ENDOWMENTS 75 

A chicken and a baby have the feeding instinct not only in 
the form of sensations of hunger and of a tendency to motion of 
some kind but it is manifested in the movement of certain parts 
of the body in specific ways in response to food and other 
stimuli connected with feeding. 

The chicken, when hungry, pecks at any small object that is 
clearly differentiated from its surroundings, whether it be a 
particle of meal, the eye of its mate, or its own toe. With practice 
the movement becomes more accurate and is associated with 
movements of the legs in approaching objects and in poising 
the body for pecking. The grasping with the bill and swallow- 
ing of loose particles is also instinctive and only slightly improved 
with practice. The next step in learning is to cease from pecking 
at objects that cannot be clasped by the beak and to limit the 
pecking more and more to those kinds of objects which give 
satisfaction when taken into the mouth. Another step in learn- 
ing to eat is taken when the young chicken runs to the mother in 
response to her food call; whether the response to this call is 
instinctive or whether the sound merely draws attention to the 
food particles that the chicken has already learned to observe, 
approach, and peck, is doubtful. 

The next step in learning is based on the instinctive tendency 
to move the feet in a certain way when they are stimulated by an 
uneven surface. This occurs in association with the picking 
of food particles and results in the chicken's learning to scratch for 
food. Having progressed thus far, whenever he is stimulated by 
hunger he moves about ; and if he sees anything resembling a bit 
of food, he pecks it, or if he is on an uneven or soft surface where 
food is concealed, he scratches and pecks alternately. If a 
chicken is with a hen, he learns to follow her, partly perhaps be- 
cause of an instinctive tendency to follow moving objects, and 
partly because the satisfaction of getting food is more frequently 
experienced near the mother hen. When, however, he grows 



76 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

more skillful in getting food for himself, he finds less competition 
at a distance from the mother, where there are not several other 
chickens ready to seize upon each morsel. 

If food is more frequently found at certain places than at others, 
he learns to go to those places for it. If he sees some one bringing 
the food or hears a call as it is brought, he soon learns to come for 
food when the same stimuli are seen or heard. This learning 
may be further specialized into a response to a specific call or 
the sight of certain movements. 

Again, a chicken may be put in a maze and fed when he gets 
out and may thus learn to pass accurately through a rather 
complicated network of paths in order to get food. Various 
other tricks may be taught him, providing in each case the new 
movements are associated with the sensations of hunger, the 
instinctive and acquired movements already known, and the 
getting of food. Looked at in a broad way we see that the general 
condition of hunger calls forth varied movements, external stimuli 
produce special reactions, and any movement that brings satis- 
faction is selected for survival. Such movements, as they are 
repeated, become more restricted as to the exact nature of the 
stimulus calling them forth and as to their number and accuracy. 
When the response to a specific stimulus has been repeated until 
it is made in the same way every time, a habit has been formed. 

The progress of a child in learning to eat may be traced in a 
similar way, but it is more complex and the things learned may be 
much more remotely associated with the feeding instinct. It 
extends not only to the child's own bodily movements, but also 
to his manipulation of implements such as spoon, knife, and fork, 
and, later, to the learning of an occupation, partly in response 
to the feeding instinct. It leads not only to the learning of 
movements, but to the formation of images concerned with food. 
A hungry person can scarcely avoid such images either when 
awake or at night in his dreams. 



MODIFICATION OF NATIVE ENDOWMENTS 77 

The learning involved in modifying, perfecting, and extending 
native reactions and the association of external movements and 
of mental states with the inner impulse to secure some instinctive 
end, is in all cases of a character similar to that described in 
detail for the feeding instinct. 

There are only partial exceptions to this general principle of 
learning. Many animals, and especially young children, make a 
great many impulsive movements which seem to be of a chance 
character. Often they are instinctive movements only sHghtly 
speciaHzed to meet the situation. These combine with and 
modify the more definite instinctive movements, and in a more 
or less chance way one of them brings favorable results and is 
then selected for repetition and specialization. 

Training and teaching must always start with instinctive re- 
actions as modified and extended by previous experience. A 
person who wishes to train a horse to answer questions, for 
example, may begin with the tendency to respond by lifting the 
foot and putting it down again when the shin is struck. This 
tendency may be developed into a response when a stick is 
seen to move toward the shin, then to the stimulus of a glance 
and word from the trainer. A horse may then be induced to 
begin pawing and to continue until another gesture is the signal 
for stopping. Such a horse may then be made to appear to 
count and solve arithmetical problems by pawing the required 
number of times. In a similar way the training and teaching 
of a child is a process of modifying instinctive and habitual 
reactions and developing new ones in association with them in 
such a way as to produce coordinated movement and thinking. 

MODES OF LEARNING 

It will be seen that the chicken starting with instinctive re- 
actions learns by his own movements, and not directly by what 
others do. Many movements are of a more or less chance or 



78 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

trial character when the situation is unusual and the particular 
movements to be learned are largely new, as when an animal is 
trying to get out of a cage. A chicken, a dog, or a cat, if placed 
in a cage, learns to get out by this method of trial and success. 
He goes to all parts of the inclosure and does various things 
until he happens to make the movement which opens the door. 
Such an animal may see his mate who has learned how to escape 
from the cage perform the act again and again, but when placed 
therein may himself make just as many trial movements before 
getting out as did another animal who had not seen others escape. 

In the case of monkeys and some other mammals, an animal 
who has seen another get out of a cage will profit to a slight 
degree, in that he frequently confines his operations chiefly to the 
part of the cage where the successful movement of turning a 
button or pulling a string was made by the trained mate, instead 
of scratching and biting at various places. Very rarely do 
animals, even monkeys, make the specific movement which they 
have seen bring success to another. 

In contrast with this a child will notice the specific character 
of movements made by others and then reproduce those move- 
ments with approximate correctness, increasing his accuracy 
with practice. In other words children imitate to a great extent 
in learning to do new things, whereas animals make very little 
use of this method of learning. This is one reason why children 
can learn so many more new things, much more complex ones, 
and so much more quickly. Children usually attain their first 
approximate success through imitation, while the animal can 
only succeed through repeated, unguided trials. The most 
marked exception to this general rule is found in the imitation of 
sounds by parrots and some other birds. Trainers of animals 
make very little use of imitation, while trainers of children con- 
stantly use it. 

Animals perfect and modify instinctive reactions through a 



MODIFICATION OF NATIVE ENDOWMENTS 79 

primitive form of imitation, as when they go with companions in 
search of food and join them in fleeing from danger ; but in learn- 
ing newer and more complex movements imitation plays little part. 
A chicken, a cat, or a dog will develop the usual movements and 
cries of his species when he grows up alone, as accurately as 
when he has companions, but the process may be slower. A 
child, on the other hand, without persons to imitate, will scarcely 
be human in his actions. 

There is another method of learning open to man that is utterly 
closed to animals, that of learning through the symbol and thought 
method, or, as it is sometimes called, the ^^ method of understanding.^^ 
It is true that animals may be taught to understand language in 
the sense that when certain words are uttered they will perform a 
certain act ; e.g., ''Rover, go get the cows" may send the trained 
shepherd dog flying to the pasture. In no case, however, is it pos- 
sible for an animal to learn to do new things through the medium 
of words only, as can a child. You may give a command to an 
animal and, as he makes various trial movements, direct him by 
gestures and by warning or encouraging cries, according as his 
movements are in the direction of failure or success. If he finally 
does the right thing, a reward and further practice will soon result 
in his learning what to do when that command is given. The 
dog has learned to respond correctly to your words, but he has not 
learned hy means of your words, and no animal can be taught 
in that way. 

A child learns the meaning of words as does the dog, but 
ultimately he gains such a power of separating and combining 
the ideas corresponding to word symbols that he can learn of 
objects and events that he has never witnessed, and he can learn 
to perform complex movements from description and practice 
only. With this method of learning open to him, a child may 
profit by all the transmitted experience of companions and of the 
race; while animals gain nothing except from their immediate 



8o FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

companions, and that learning is limited in amount because specific 
new movements are imitated rarely or not at all. 

It is evident that the child has a great advantage over animals 
in his free use of two methods of learning which are not open in 
any considerable degree to them, each permitting him to learn 
by the experience of others. For both children and animals, 
however, personal experience is the fundamental form of learn- 
ing. In such learning, direction of movements by the teacher is 
not sufHcient. There must be some sort of stimulus and some 
sort of end to be gained associated with the movements. If 
an animal is held while in a cage and his foot made to turn a 
button, then is taken out of the cage and given food, he makes 
very little progress in learning to get out and get food ; but if when 
he is trying to get out he is assisted in finding and turning the 
button and then allowed to go out and get food, he learns very 
quickly. In a similar way a child may be aided in learning to do 
what he is attempting, but unless he is active in responding to a 
certain stimulus or situation for the purpose of securing some 
desirable result, putting him through the motions has little 
effect. On the other hand, he has such power of representing 
movements that if he desires to learn how to respond to a certain 
situation, he can often do so with little practice if he sees the act 
performed by some one else or if he hears or reads a description 
of how it should be done. It is because of this power of mentally 
representing or performing the movements appropriate to certain 
situations that the child can learn so much more rapidly than 
can any animal. 

Teachers, however, presume too much regarding this mode of 
learning by children. Such power is not possessed until they 
have learned a great deal through their own actual experiences 
and it cannot be effectively utilized if the child is led to represent 
the process only without a clear representation of the situation 
to be met and the end to be gained. Much of the arithmetical 



MODIFICATION OF NATIVE ENDOWMENTS 8i 

and other teaching is a failure, because the teacher dwells on the 
process to be used without the child's appreciating the situation 
to be met or caring for the end to be gained. 

The younger the child and the more unfamiliar the thing being 
taught to him, the more important is the method of learning by 
actual trial and experience leading to success. The method of 
imitation may be used as an aid in directing practice. Later, 
words may be used in guiding the attempts at imitation, and 
finally one who has had sufficient experience in a given line may 
be taught by means of words only, but the learning is not effective 
until the directions have been put into actual practice. Much 
of what is taught in school has little permanent result because 
the things learned are not connected either actually or in imagina- 
tion with the situations that make them significant, and are not 
put in practice for years after they are learned. 

THE PHYSIOLOGY OF LEARNING 

Learning is possible because whenever certain parts of an 
organism act together or in immediate sequence in a certain way, 
with results that are not unfavorable to the organism, changes 
more or less permanent are produced in those parts which make 
them more ready to act in the same way in response to a stimulus 
or situation similar to the one which previously initiated the 
action. This general principle holds for all living creatures from 
the highest to the lowest, and for all sorts of tissues. It applies 
to glands as well as to nervous and muscular tissue. The safivary 
glands may learn to respond to certain sights or odors or even to 
images of them, just as the muscles of the arm and hand may 
learn to manipulate a spoon in getting food into the mouth. This 
characteristic of preserving the effects of past activity is probably 
greater in the nerve cells than in any other part of the body. 
Nerve tissue of a highly developed character constitutes a larger 
proportion of the human body than in the case of almost any 



82 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

other creature. This is probably the reason why man can learn 
so much more and so much more quickly. 

The exact nature of the changes produced in nervous and in 
other tissue by activity is not known. It is probably partly 
nutritive in character, since the results of any given act of learning 
are greater when the organism is healthy and unfatigued. The 
effects of practice also seem to be greater when it occurs at proper 
intervals. This probably is because some of the tissue is used 
up by the activity and must be replaced by new material. This 
replacing takes place best during periods of comparative rest, 
especially during sleep. Again, the permanency of the effects of 
activity depends in part upon the vigor or intensity of the action, 
intense activities producing more permanent effects than sHght 
ones, although activities that are too intense may lack in definite- 
ness because of the spreading of activity to other parts, or there 
may be overstrain and consequent failure of proper rebuilding 
processes. Similarly, very brief activity has less permanent 
effects than more prolonged, providing the time of continuance 
is not too great. To increase muscular and nervous power and 
to make impressions permanent there is probably an intensity 
and a period of continuance of activity more favorable than any 
other, though these differ for different processes, different persons, 
and varying ages. 

One of the most important laws of learning is that regarding 
summation of the effects of repetition. Each new repetition adds 
its effects to those of preceding ones and the tendency to that 
type of activity grows ever stronger. It is not a matter of in- 
difference as to how closely repetitions follow each other. If 
they follow with great rapidity for a considerable time, fatigue 
similar to the overstrain of intense stimulation or exertion is the 
result. On the other hand, if the intervals between repetitions 
are very long, the effects of the previous repetition may have 
nearly disappeared and many repetitions may be made in a period 



MODIFICATION OF NATIVE ENDOWMENTS 83 

of years without producing a very distinct effect on memory or 
on skill in doing. 

There is reason for believing that there are two kinds of inter- 
vals between repetitions to be recognized as conducive to the 
most efficient learning, viz., several repetitions at short intervals 
followed by another group of repetitions after an interval suffi- 
ciently long for nutritive changes to take place. For example, 
one may practice making certain letters or playing a certain 
piece or practicing a certain stroke in tennis or golf a number of 
times one day, then repeat the period of practice the next day. 
What the most favorable period of practice is and what the most 
favorable interval between periods, varies with the nature of 
the activity, the personality, and the age of the individual. In 
general, short periods are better in the case of simple activities, 
for younger persons and for individuals who fatigue quickly. As 
to intervals, in the absence of positive proof it is probably best to 
give preference to that of one day, corresponding to nature's 
rhythm, associated with which there is known to be a physiologi- 
cal rhythm. This principle, however, should be recognized, 
that the favorable interval probably varies with the stage of 
learning. The effects of repetition disappear rather rapidly at 
first, then more slowly. In the early stage of learning it is 
advantageous to have practice periods follow each other often so 
that the effects shall not decrease too much ; while in the later 
stages of learning, long intervals result in only sHght losses. 
After anything has been pretty well learned one or two repetitions 
at intervals of a week, a month, or even a year may restore almost 
completely one's former ability, while a beginner practicing at 
such intervals would never attain much skill. 

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING AND OF EFFICIENCY 

The principles enunciated under the physiology of learning 
also have their psychological aspects. In learning complex 



84 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

acts, the more distinctly psychological processes play a large part. 
Along with selection of the more favorable reactions and parts 
of actions for repetition and the elimination of useless movements, 
there are usually changes in the intensity and in the direction of 
attention. The act as a whole requires less and less intensity of 
attention, until a very complex process may be carried on while 
thinking of something else. Before this stage of learning has 
been reached there has been a good deal of limiting and shift- 
ing of attention. In serving a tennis ball, one at first con- 
sciously looks to see how the racket is held and how it is 
brought in contact with the ball. He also notices the feeHng 
of the racket in the hand and the arm and wrist sensations as 
the strokes are made. With practice, less and less attention 
is given to these phases of the process and more and more to 
the kind of motion to be given the ball and to the place where it 
is to strike. 

Some instructors in the early stages of practice not only direct 
attention to the position of the racket and the kind of arm move- 
ment being made, but prolong the practice of separate phases of 
the movement with attention to the details. Others show how 
the movement as a whole is made and from the first direct the 
attention of their pupils to the end to be accomplished, with 
only occasional and temporary direction of attention to changes 
in the stroke needed in order to accomplish the end effectively. 
If teacher and pupil are both quick to see what changes in 
movement are necessary in order to meet the situation properly, 
progress is very rapid because little time is wasted in useless 
practice of parts of a complex series of movements and in attend- 
ing to details that are best dropped out of consciousness as soon 
as possible. On the other hand, if the pupil does not make many 
changes in his manner of holding and swinging his racket or 
does not notice the changes that he does make and their effects, 
he may practice a great deal with little improvement, unless the 



MODIFICATION OF NATIVE ENDOWMENTS 85 

teacher directs his attention to the essentials and drills him on 
special phases of the process. 

In all practice there is more or less variation in the mode of 
performance and a selection for repetition of the movements 
which bring the most favorable results. This is true to some 
extent whether or not there is consciousness of the fact. A 
horse may learn to wind from side to side in going up a steep hill, 
or a boy may learn to maintain his equilibrium on a bicycle, with- 
out being conscious of the changes in movement involved. Con- 
scious attention to the right details may, however, in some cases, 
lead to much quicker learning. For example, a young animal when 
put in a cage may make a much greater number and variety of 
movements than an older one, but it is found that frequently the 
older animal will discover more quickly just what movements 
have helped in getting out. In solving puzzles a child will begin 
at once, attempting to do the thing in various ways ; while an 
adult is more likely to consider what is essential and select 
particular movements to be made, before beginning to work. He 
also notices more definitely what happens and hence usually gets 
the solution with fewer trials than the child who makes the same 
false moves again and again. 

An expert in manual work makes no useless movements and an 
expert in the performance of intellectual tasks attends to nothing 
that does not help him attain his ends. Some persons in learning 
seem to hit upon efficient methods by luck or genius, while others 
consciously discover one by one the elements that contribute to 
efficiency, and still others learn little by practice and always do 
things only with the expenditure of a great deal of energy. 

The problem of the teacher is to know what details to call 
attention to and how long to dwell upon them. In general, 
it is not well to prolong attention to details that are better 
ignored later. It is also usually better to call less attention to 
sensations being experienced by the learner and more to the 



86 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

results being obtained. If a child can be induced to grasp a 
spoon, a pen, or a tennis racket correctly and to make the proper 
motions without calling his attention to the exact way in which 
he is to hold and move his fingers, then his attention may be 
given more completely to the results he is securing by his move- 
ments of the implement. Prolonged attention to the bodily 
sensations interferes with rather than hastens the process of 
learning. 

Another principle of supreme importance nearly always violated 
by teachers is that special attention should not be called to mis- 
takes that are made. Such directing of attention naturally 
results in the repetition of the mistake, and only a learner with 
intelligence and a great deal of voluntary control can help being 
disturbed and hindered in his progress by it. He naturally 
thinks of what not to do instead of what to do, and this tends 
to make him repeat the movements or in attempting to avoid 
them he makes other and often more serious mistakes. One 
is sometimes helped by having attention called to errors 
providing the wrong method is noticed only in order to bring 
out by contrast the right way of doing. In nearly every 
case, however, it is much better if possible to direct attention 
to the thing that should be done instead of to what should 
not be done. This is especially true of young children who 
have Httle power of directing their own attention and of con- 
trolling their muscles. There are many wrong or inefficient 
ways of doing things, and it is natural to try several of these 
before getting the right one. If a wrong method is repeated, a 
slight change in the situation may lead to the use of other methods 
until the right one is adopted. Attention may then be called 
to this, with advantage. On the other hand, calling the child's 
attention to the various errors he has made emphasizes those 
errors and confuses him as he strives to avoid each. The negative 
act of trying to avoid errors is a wasteful process in learning and 



MODIFICATION OF NATIVE ENDOWMENTS 87 

should be performed only where a single type of error has become 
established as a habit. 

MATURITY, LEARNING, AND ABILITY 

Spaulding found that chickens that were kept bhnded for 
from one to three days were about as successful in pecking at 
food as those that had had opportunities for practice. Breed 
found that if kept blinded five or six days (being fed by putting 
food in the mouth) they were at first not skillful in getting food, 
but that they improved so rapidly that at seven days they were 
equal to normal chickens. Both experimenters interpret the 
results as meaning that the ability to take food successfully 
depends in part upon the maturity of the chicken and not wholly 
upon the amount of practice that he has. Probably the five-days- 
old chicks were unsuccessful at first because the habit of taking 
food from the hand had been developed before they had a 
chance to try to peck it in the usual way. In general, instincts 
ripen, skill becomes greater, and the animal or child becomes more 
mature not only when active, but during periods when there is 
little or no opportunity for learning by practice. This maturity 
is shown in what is done and in the way in which it is done. 
Practice may result in more or less rapid learning according to 
general laws of development favoring or opposing rapid maturity 
in that line at certain ages and according to the inherited tend- 
encies of the individual. 

Some persons are more ready than others in storing up and using 
the material furnished by experiences, and this constitutes what 
may be called general mental ability. Again, some persons can 
deal with certain materials, e.g. musical sounds, with much greater 
facihty than can others. This constitutes special endowment, 
talent, or abihty. With exactly the same environment each in- 
dividual will mature in general and special ability at different 
rates and ultimately in different degrees, just as people vary in 



88 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

rate of growth and ultimate size of the body as a whole and in 
certain parts. In neither case does it follow that the one who 
matures most rapidly is ultimately further ahead, for changes may 
continue for a longer time in the other. Either may also change 
more or less suddenly his rate of maturing. The facts regarding 
this matter are most clearly seen when we contrast different ani- 
mals or different races of men, or feeble-minded with normal in- 
dividuals. A robin matures much earlier than a chicken, but 
probably does not ultimately become more intelKgent ; a negro 
child learns to walk and talk early, but his mental development 
becomes slower and stops sooner than in the case of whites. A 
feeble-minded child may seem to be almost the same as normal 
children till three, seven, nine, or eleven years of age, then have his 
development almost completely arrested. He may learn some 
new things of a specific nature, but fails to make any advance in 
the use of the general results of experience and training. The 
Binet tests are especially designed to determine the extent or 
progress of general mental development. They are closely 
related to, but not necessarily identical with, tests of general 
mental ability as it may ultimately be revealed. 

Brightness or quickness may greatly differ in individuals who 
are equally mature, hence tests of general ability, which includes 
brightness, need to be different from tests of maturity. The way 
in which a child solves a puzzle or defines a word is of great sig- 
nificance in relation to his mental maturity, while the number of 
solutions or definitions he is capable of in a given time is more 
significant of his brightness. The rapidity of performance may 
not even be a true indication of mental quickness if the individual 
has had some special training in that particular act. 

A test in some line in which all the children have had very 
nearly an equal chance to learn is a better test of general mental 
maturity and of general mental ability than one that gives 
opportunity to use special experience and training. The manner 



MODIFICATION OF NATIVE ENDOWMENTS 89 

of doing is more significant of the degree of mental maturity, 
while the amount done is more significant of general mental 
ability. Of course in many cases speed is increased by more 
mature methods of working and thinking. 

The problem of special mental abiHty is not easily separated 
from that of special training. An individual with special 
musical or mathematical training may seem to have as great or 
greater special abiHty of that kind than another with real genius 
who has had little or no special training. To count these two 
persons as equal, in planning a vocation for them, would be 
absurd, yet it is difficult to devise tests that are independent of 
special opportunities for learning or of special training. 

There is another factor in general and special ability which 
renders it exceedingly difficult to determine by means of tests 
what the general or special success of an individual will be. 
Intensity of effort, adaptabihty, initiative, partly describe this 
elusive factor. A biologist cannot tell by examining an animal 
whether he will be likely to survive in a given environment or 
not, until he knows how he is going to use his special endowments 
of color, strength, speed, and weapons of defense, and the relations 
he will establish with his environment. In a new or changing 
environment a plant or animal will flourish or decline in a way 
wholly unpredictable, as witness the English sparrow, the 
brown-tail moth, the grasshopper. Men of all degrees and varie- 
ties of native endowment succeed in a given environment and 
in the same occupation, some by one means and some by another. 
An important element in intellectual ability is shown in the way 
in which a man brings to bear, upon the problems confronting 
him, his native powers, develops some of them, and adapts him- 
self in one way or another to the conditions confronting him. 
This element in intelligence is most difficult to measure, partly 
because you never know what an individual will do in this 
respect until you give him sufficient motive for action, and motive 



90 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

in man is hard to regulate, and partly because it is hard to give a 
test that will truly show this general quality, which is also to 
some extent special by endowment and training. The person 
who shows great resourcefulness, initiativeness and inventiveness 
in one line, such as mechanical construction, may show very little 
in another, such as musical composition or scientific research. 

These facts make it difficult to formulate the general laws 
governing the mental development of man and still harder to 
predict what an individual who appears to possess certain 
general and special abilities will do when confronted with new 
situations. You may estimate from his previous success in 
school what his future scholastic success will be, with consider- 
able assurance, but it is almost impossible to prophesy his future 
occupation and success after he leaves school. 

It also makes reliable studies of learning processes difficult. 
Practice at a time when inner conditions are favorable to rapid 
learning and maturing may produce much greater results than 
the use of an intrinsically better method at a time when internal 
conditions are less favorable. An educator who gives each kind of 
training at the time when inner processes are most favorable to 
that phase of development may get far better results than one who 
uses technically better methods with less regard for natural 
stages of development. This is one of the chief reasons for 
studying children's interests as indications of conditions favorable 
to certain kinds of learning. Care must be taken, however, to 
distinguish the temporary interest of novelty or the more de- 
veloped interests of apperceptive knowledge and experience from 
those due to the strengthening and waning of fundamental 
instincts at the various ages or the unfolding of special inherited 
talents. 

HABITS 

Some habits are formed by repeating again and again, in the 
same way and in response to the same stimulus, movements 



MODIFICATION OF NATIVE ENDOWMENTS 91 

which have had favorable results. In a large proportion of 
cases, however, habits are formed in a different way. Usually 
there is a period of learning during which stimuli vary and re- 
actions change until after a while a certain phase of the situation 
which is constant and significant is responded to by the same 
sort of reaction again and again without much variation. This 
marks the final stage of learning in which habits are formed and 
become fixed. Such a stage is, however, not necessarily per- 
manently final so far as performing the complex act is concerned. 
The tennis player who has learned how to hold and swing the 
racket and strike the ball in any desired direction acquires after 
some further practice a pretty definite habit of serving, as his 
position in standing and his movements in tossing and striking 
the ball indicate. A change in his racket will modify it only 
slightly. His position in standing and his strokes in returning 
the ball will become definitely habitual less soon because the 
situations vary so much, but after a while he will also have 
rather characteristic habits of movement in returning balls, 
according as they are high or low, slow or swift, on the right side 
or on the left. If he attempts nothing but the moderate direct 
stroke, these various habits may become well established. If, 
however, he undertakes cut strokes, every one of these habits will 
be departed from. New habits may entirely replace the old ones 
or may be developed in addition to them, and one or the other 
be used at will. The first effect of the attempt to use the cut 
stroke is always a falling off in abihty to win games. In nearly all 
complex learning there are one or more periods in which progress 
ceases and often appears to recede because of changes in the 
method of performing the act. If the new method is a good one, 
advance again takes place as soon as faciHty in its use has been 
obtained by practice. Very frequently the attempt to change 
the method, as in changing the stroke in tennis, makes it im- 
possible to use the old method successfully while the new is being 



92 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

learned. If each method is practiced separately with the definite 
purpose of using the one method or the other, the interference 
between the two is less. 

The '^ plateaus" so often found in learning curves are fre- 
quently, if not always, due either to variations in interest in the 
task or to a change in the method of performing some part of it. 

As has already been indicated, improvement with practice is 
marked by the doing away with useless movements and decrease 
of attention. This is the chief reason why the task becomes easier 
and one of the principal reasons why the speed of performance is 
so greatly increased. Another reason for increased rate of work 
is because, as processes become simplified and mechanical to 
the individual, other processes may be carried on at the same 
time. It is due to such overlapping of physical and mental pro- 
cesses that we are able to perform so easily such complex acts 
as standing erect, holding a book correctly, moving the eyes along 
the parallel lines of print, pausing to see all that is necessary in 
order to recognize words and phrases, moving the vocal organs 
in uttering sounds and giving each the proper emphasis, while 
thinking of the meaning of the sentences read and perhaps also 
criticizing the literary style. The perfecting of one habit facili- 
tates the forming of another, and attention which perhaps was 
formerly wholly occupied with one or the other of the processes is 
now needed only slightly or occasionally, except for those that 
have not yet reached the habit stage and been properly grafted 
on to the others or fused with them. 

One of the practical problems in pedagogy is to determine the 
kind and amount of practice that should be given in learning 
various useful things, such as writing. How good and how rapid 
should one's writing be before practice for the purpose of further 
improvement shall cease ? We know that there is a stage beyond 
which further practice shows Httle results. A good deal of time 
is required to reach that stage ; and if continued effort is not made 



MODIFICATION OF NATIVE ENDOWMENTS 93 

to maintain or raise the standard, there is danger of dropping 
back. On the other hand, if one stops a little short of his best, 
then tries to keep his writing nearly the same all the time what- 
ever he may be doing, it is possible to write page after page uni- 
formly and with little or no thought given to the process. This 
result will be greatly facilitated if the same style of script is 
used and the same kind of movement employed in all practice. 
If writing is regarded simply as a means of expressing thought, it 
is undoubtedly wise to thus make it a fixed habit. 

If, on the other hand, permanship is regarded as an art worthy 
in itself of the highest degree of cultivation, then various styles of 
writing should be practiced and the forming of fixed habits 
avoided. 

Efficiency demands that anything which needs to be done 
often should be performed with ease and facility and with only as 
much elegance as the case requires. If, however, a subject is 
being taken up for purposes of general development, care should 
be taken to vary the process in a variety of ways and to postpone 
the formation of fixed habits which will be likely to interfere with 
further development. One who is to perform day after day a 
certain kind of mathematical calculation may, for purposes of 
efficiency and of economy of time, learn and practice one method 
only of solving such problems ; while the person who wishes to 
develop his mathematical powers could more profitably study 
fundamental principles and receive some practice in various 
methods of solving problems of the same type. 

GENERAL AND SPECIAL TRAINING 

The organism is a unit and the vigor of activity of even the 
smallest part depends to some extent upon the condition of the 
whole body and especially upon the action of the vital organs. 
The reverse of this statement is that the activity of any part of 
the body affects other parts of the body, especially those of general 



94 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

vital significance. Exercising one arm modifies the breathing 
and the heart beat, while the amount and quality of the blood 
flowing to different parts of the body are changed. The effects 
upon corresponding parts of the body are greater than upon 
non-corresponding parts. For example, the left arm may be 
increased in size by exercising the right arm more than can the 
legs by such exercise. 

The nervous system is of especial importance in spreading the 
effects of activity to other parts. Experiments show that if an 
auditory stimulus is given at just the right interval before the 
touch stimulus of striking the leg just below the knee cap, the 
reflex movement of the foot will be increased. 

It is evident that continued activity of any part of the body 
not only develops that part, but other parts whose activity is 
indirectly increased by the practice. The reverse also holds true. 
If the activity of one part of the body decreases activity in some 
other part, the practice which develops one part may inhibit the 
development of another. The effects of practice are therefore 
(i) local, affecting the parts exercised ; (2) diffused and special 
in so far as other particular activities are changed ; and (3) general, 
in so far as vital processes concerned in all activity are affected. 
A bicycle rider develops especially the muscles of his lower limbs 
and to some extent special muscles in other parts of the body. 
The rower develops especially the muscles of the shoulders and 
back, while both develop the muscles controlling the lungs, 
those of the heart, and of other vital organs. There is also 
specialized and general development of brain centers in both 
cases. If the bicyclist turns to foot racing, he will be better 
prepared for success than if he had not ridden a bicycle, because 
his vital organs will be better developed and some of the muscles 
of his legs will be stronger. In a similar way the rower will be 
better prepared for hammer throwing by his previous practice 
in rowing. Both have some preparation for football because of 



MODIFICATION OF NATIVE ENDOWMENTS 95 

general increase in vitality and increased strength of some of 
the muscles to be used. Neither would be materially helped by 
the special technique that he had developed by his previous 
practice. 

Special skill and efficiency, as we have already seen, result 
from the limiting of varied movements to a few useful ones 
accurately made. The farther this process is carried the greater 
the efl&ciency in the specialized task, but the less are the effects 
upon the vital organs and upon other parts of the body which 
are no longer active to any considerable extent as skill is attained. 
Persons engaged in physical training usually take varied exercise 
as well as specialized practice in order that general vitahty may 
be maintained and increased and in order that a better balance 
in the development of parts of the body may be secured. Even 
those who care only for winning in a certain kind of an athletic 
event follow this plan, while those who are concerned for general 
physical development rather than for specialized skill in one line, 
give much more attention to general development than to spe- 
cialized practice. It is clear from the above that the early 
stages of practice in which the activity is diffused have more 
general effects than the later stages in which special habits of 
technique are formed. The special habits developed in one 
kind of exercise may not only fail to help in doing something 
else, but may interfere with success at least for a time. The foot- 
ball player who has learned to hold the ball tight against his 
body and run with it, has some trouble in learning to pass it as 
soon as he gets it in playing basket ball ; and the tennis player 
when playing hand ball at first finds it hard to strike with the 
hand instead of with the racket. In both cases, however, the 
previous practice in passing and placing balls helps specifically in 
the new game. Although every exercise produces general effects, 
it is evident that some produce more effects than others upon 
the vital organs, whose improvement increases the efficiency of 



96 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

all parts, and some exercises provide a better preparation for one 
occupation than for another. 

There is every reason to believe that these same principles hold 
with regard to cerebral and associational mental activity. There 
are differences in mental vigor just as there are in physical, and 
every special mental activity has associated and general as well 
as local effects. Practice in solving problems in mathematics, 
science, or language not only increases one's ability to solve those 
particular problems and similar ones, but adds something to the 
power to perform any mental task, or, in other words, to general 
mental power. Further, the practice in dealing with language 
problems in one language may be of more help in studying other 
languages than in scientific research. 

The old doctrine of mental discipline founded upon the false 
idea of special faculties, which assumes that all acts of memory 
are alike and similarly those of perception, reasoning, etc., is 
admittedly absurd. The new idea of mental discipline based on 
the truths of physiology and psychology is yet to be worked out 
scientifically. There is every reason to believe, however, that 
there are general and special powers of the mind which may be 
increased by exercise of special kinds, some exercises being more 
effective than others for general and special purposes. Just 
what kinds of study produce most general effects and just which 
kinds are the best preparation for success in a particular line, 
must be determined by experience and experiment. It is, how- 
ever, evident that the acquisition of specific forms of knowledge 
and mental ability must have more general effects than the 
practice in using them after special habits have been developed 
and the activity has become more restricted. 

FATIGUE IN LEARNING 

The process of learning is closely related to that of fatigue. 
Some fatigue in the sense of liberating energy through the using 



MODIFICATION OF NATIVE ENDOWMENTS 97 

up of the portions of the body that are active is preliminary to 
the process of building a reorganized tissue which shall perma- 
nently retain the effects of the practice. On the other hand, if a 
very definite act is performed many times until the most readily 
decomposed materials of the tissues involved have been used up, 
there is a condition known as fatigue which is due in part to the 
clogging and poisonous effects of the production of waste material 
during activity, more rapidly than it can be removed by the 
circulation of blood in the part. This fatigue may be shown 
by decreased vigor and rapidity of working, but is more often 
shown by irregular activity or by the bringing of other parts 
into action. 

If one is required to tap with his finger until he becomes 
fatigued, there is some irregularity in rate and manner of moving, 
then a change in the way of tapping whereby the muscles of 
the forearm or whole arm are used instead of those of the finger. 
If the other fingers are kept on the table so that this cannot be 
done and a strong effort is made to keep the finger moving as 
rapidly as ever, other muscles will be brought into action, such as 
those of the jaw in setting the teeth, or of the brow in frowning, 
or of the other hand in clenching the fist, as strong effort is put 
forth. In other words the change is from accurate movement 
of a few muscles to movements that are more indefinite and 
futile in attaining the end, a change which parallels in an almost 
inverse way the changes that take place in learning. 

A person of determination may continue by force of will to 
perform his tasks after he has become fatigued, but in doing so he 
expends much energy in making useless movements. As a conse- 
quence he may experience general fatigue as well as special 
fatigue of the parts usefully employed. In this fact that general 
fatigue is produced not only by general exercise but by pro- 
longed and excessive activity of a few muscles, we have another 
parallel of what takes place in general and special development. 



98 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

It may be admitted that the effort of working when fatigued 
may have some discipHnary results in that various parts of the 
body are forced into activity. On the other hand it is still 
clearer that if diffused and useless movements follow when fatigue 
begins, the process of learning in the sense of improvement in 
the doing must be reversed. Clear evidence of this was found by 
Professor Book in his experiments upon learning to typewrite. A 
beginner writes at first by letters, later by words, and still later 
by clauses and sentences. If one who was in the word stage of 
writing practiced when fatigued, he never advanced while thus 
practicing to the clause stage, but he was very likely to drop back 
into the less rapid and efficient letter stage of writing. A habit 
that is pretty well formed may be maintained while practicing 
when fatigued, but learning in the sense of progressing into a 
more efficient method of working is not possible. It seems, then, 
that in the earlier stages of learning anything, practicing when 
fatigued not only does not advance one, but is very likely to retard 
him. If one practices only when he is tired, he is almost sure 
to form crude and inefficient habits of doing the thing which if 
long used are hard to break. It follows from this that if one 
must work when tired it should not be at tasks in which the 
best method of performance is yet to be learned. This has 
much the same basis as the familiar rule that difficult tasks should 
be undertaken when one is fresh and vigorous. 

Just as special technique gained in one line has little effect 
upon other kinds of technique or general power, so does local 
fatigue (not prolonged until it becomes general) have little 
effect upon fatigue of other parts or upon general fatigue. Rest 
may therefore be obtained from one kind of activity by engaging 
in another. Again, just as some kinds of learning prepare for 
others, so some kinds of fatigue are best relieved by certain 
other kinds of activity. A person who is experiencing general 
fatigue is in an entirely different state from one who is locally 



MODIFICATION OF NATIVE ENDOWMENTS 99 

fatigued, just as a person of general vigor differs from one who 
has Httle vitahty but a great deal of technical skill of some 
kind. 

The relations between learning and fatigue are such that from 
the standpoint of science, investigations as to the effects of fatigue 
produced by a certain kind of activity upon other special parts of 
the body and upon the vitality as a whole, will help in determining 
the effects of one kind of practice upon other activities and for 
general abiHty. On the practical side it is probable that of two 
men doing the same work, the one who so arranges his periods of 
work and his rest and recreation periods and who works in such 
a way as to become least fatigued, will have gained most general 
discipline and development. 

The phenomena of fatigue compHcate some of the studies of 
learning processes. There is usually a '^ warming up" stage at 
the beginning of practice, due probably to increased circulation 
in the active parts ; then in the latter part of a period of practice, 
fatigue may counteract some of the practice effects. Again, 
fatigue is more or less rhythmical, which is analogous to the 
plateaus in learning and may sometimes be partially responsible 
for them. 

Exercises for Students 

1. Give examples of persons in the same environment being affected by 
different phases of their environment and developing in different ways. 

2. Study and describe the early learning of some animal or child. 

3. Report instances observed in which adults learn largely by trial and 
success; or set them to solve puzzles and note the method used; e.g., 
put a penny on a card and balance it on the finger, then knock the card out, 
leaving the penny. 

4. Discuss the relative advantages of children learning games, music, 
arithmetic, or geography by actual experiences, imitative or chance, and by 
imaginative experience or by learning symbols or rules. 

5. Report observations as to the relative advantages of short or long 
periods of practice and of longer or shorter intervals between practice periods. 



lOO 



FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 



6. Study in detail the processes by which efficiency has been gained in 
some line and report the main facts as to progress and as to what helped or 
hindered. 

7. Give examples of the influence of maturing upon interest and the 
rate of learning. 

8. Give examples of habits of your own or others that are below one's 
limit of performance and state why it would or would not pay to change 
them and develop others closer to the limit of possible performance. 

9. Give examples showing that special practice gives general results. 
10. Give specific instances of acts that may be performed when fatigued 

and of those that should not be, giving reasons. 



References 
Books 



Bolton 


Kirkpatrick (2) 


Rugg 


Book 


Lyon 


Rush 


Colvin 


Marsh 


Sandiford 


Courseult 


Montessori 


Starch 


Drummond 


Mott 


Stern 


Gould 


Offnir 


Thorndike 


Gulick 


Pyle 


Washburn 


Heck (2) 


Ruger 


Watson 


Hewins 







Articles 

Book, W. F. The Role of the Teacher in the Most Expeditious and 
Economic Learning. J. Educ. Psych., 1910, Vol. i, pp. 185-199, 

Brown, J. C. An Investigation on the Value of Drill Work in the Funda- 
mental Operations in Arithmetic. J. Educ. Psych., 191 2, Vol. 3, pp. 
485-492, 560-576. Also 1913, Vol. 4. 

Dolbear, Katherine E. Precocious Children. Ped. Sem., 191 2, Vol. 19, 

pp. 461-491. 
EUison, Louise. The Acquisition of Technical Skill. Ped. Sem., 1909, 

Vol. 16, pp. 49-63- 
Kirkpatrick, E. A. An Experiment in Memorizing, Versus Incidental 

Learning. J. Educ. Pysch., 1914, Vol. 5, pp. 405-412. 
Kuhnes, E. L. Experimental Study of Dynamic Periodicity as Influenced 

by Diurnal, Weekly, Monthly and Yearly Efficiency. Ped. Sem., 

1915, Vol. 22, pp. 326-346. 



MODIFICATION OF NATIVE ENDOWMENTS loi 

Lunt, F. S. Some Investigations of Habits of Study. J. Educ. Psych., 

191 1, Vol. I, pp. 344-348. 
Lyons, C. K. The Doctrine of Formal Discipline. Fed. Sem., 1914, Vol. 

21, pp. 343-393. 
Lyon, D. O. The Relation of Length of Material to Time Taken for 

Learning and the Optimum Distribution of Time. J. Educ. Psych., 

1914, Vol. 5, pp. 1-9. 
Meyerhardt, M. W. Economical Learning. Ped. Sem., 1906, Vol. 13, pp. 

145-184. 
Norsworthy, Naomi. Acquisition as Related to Retention. J. Educ. 

Psych., 1912, Vol. 3, pp. 214-218. 
O'Shea, N. V. Popular Misconceptions Concerning Precocity in Children. 

Science, 191 1, Vol. 34, pp. 666-674. 
Pyle, W. H. Concentrated Versus Distributed Practice. J. Educ. Psych., 

1914, Vol. 5, pp. 247-258. 
Richardson, R. F. The Learning Process in the Acquisition of Skill. Ped. 

Sem., 191 2, Vol. 19, pp. 376-394. 
Shepard and Breed. Maturation and Use in the Development of an In- 
stinct. Jr. Animal Behavior, 1913, Vol. 3, pp. 274-285. 
Terman, Lewis M. Genius and Stupidity. Ped. Sem., 1906, Vol. 13, 

pp. 307-373- 
Terman, L. M. A Study in Precocity and Prematuration. Am. Jr. 

Psychol., 1905, Vol. 16, pp. 145-183. 
Witmer, L. On the Relation of Intelligence to EfiEiciency. Psychol. 

CHnic, 191 5, Vol. 9, pp. 61-86. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN INFANT 

EARLY MOVEMENTS 

The human infant is a very helpless being. This is in accord- 
ance with the general law that young animals have just enough 
power of.movement so that when their instincts are supplemented 
by those of their parents, they are able to live. 

The automatic movements of independent respiration, circula- 
tion, and digestion begin as soon as the child is born. 

At or soon after birth, reflex movements may be called forth 
by stimulating any of the senses, and most of these reflexes, 
such as closing the eye when the lid is touched, pushing out with 
the tongue unfavorable objects, and withdrawing a hand or 
foot that is painfully stimulated, are, from the first, useful; 
while others, such as clasping with toes and fingers an object 
touching them, were probably at one time in the race history 
useful in helping the mother to carry the child. 

The instinctive movements are not well developed since human 
parents are prepared to do almost everything except breathe 
and digest for the child. Even the necessary and important 
instinct of sucking is sometimes not well performed at first. 
Usually, however, it is. A strong infant held in a certain posi- 
tion and lightly touched on the cheek will, when hungry, also 
make movements of the head favorable to the finding of the 
source of nourishment. There is also in strong infants early 
evidence of rudimentary attempts at maintaining equilibrium of 
head, and a little later of body also. 



EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN INFANT 103 

The expressive mechanism for crying is well developed from 
the first, because this is needed to call the parents to reheve 
unfavorable conditions; while smiling and laughing do not 
appear till much later, because such movements are of little 
biological value at this time. Later when the parental instincts 
of the parents tend to decrease, such pleasing acts are doubt- 
less helpful in securing continued care and protection. 

Starting at sudden sounds, especially when they are accom- 
panied by a jar (as the sound of the slamming of a door), is 
v6ry marked. This is perhaps the first evidence of a general 
instinctive fear of strange and strong stimuli. A more spe- 
cialized reaction which was perhaps useful in an earlier period of 
race history is shown in the tendency, beginning in the first 
month and lasting several weeks, to shrink together and clasp 
as if afraid of falling, when lowered suddenly. Sometimes when 
clothes are removed so that there is lack of their supporting 
contact with most of the body, the same instinctive fear is mani- 
fested. 

The tendency to bring the hands to the mouth, so prominent 
almost from the first, may be the result either of the habitual 
inter-uterine position, or of an instinct which was useful in the 
earlier history of the race. The tendency is certainly very helpful 
to the child in obtaining touch sensations, since objects are by 
this movement brought to the mouth for closer examination by 
tongue and lips. 

Since ability to use the sense organs is useful to the child, we 
find a partially developed reflex tendency to do so. The eyes 
close at a touch upon them or the skin near them, but not until 
later at the visual stimulus of a threatened blow. Experience 
is perhaps necessary to develop this reflex. Turning the head 
to hear and moving the fingers to get clear touch sensations 
are probably only partially mature reflexes. Movements of 
taste organs are native, while snufiing for odors is late in develop- 



I04 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

ment. Before the beginning of the second quarter, however, 
the eyes close at a threatened blow, move together, fixate, and 
follow moving objects; while a little later there is an accurate 
turning of the head toward the source of sound, and also a marked 
tendency to use the skin of lips, fingers, and toes in getting 
sensations of touch. 

From the first, the infant makes numerous spontaneous 
and random movements of almost every part of the body, 
independently of external stimuli. These movements, resulting 
from organic conditions, growth changes, and the consequent 
outflow of energy, are important means of developing the muscles 
and preparing by variety of experience for the voluntary control 
of the muscles thus exercised. 

INCREASE IN CONNECTION BETWEEN MOVEMENTS 

During the first few weeks the movements of an infant seem 
to depend more upon general bodily conditions than upon out- 
ward stimulation of any of the special senses, and the movements 
of the different parts of the body seem to have little relation to 
each other. Soon, however, outward and special stimuli become 
more effective, so that crying and restless movements, due to 
bodily condition, may frequently be checked by auditory, 
tactual, or visual stimulations, such as singing, patting the child, 
or shaking something before his eyes. 

In the second quarter, many combinations of movement 
take place. The eyes not only turn toward and follow a moving 
object, but turn toward a sound or toward a portion of the body 
that is touched, thus bringing more than one sense into action 
and associating the resulting sensations. The lips, hands, and 
often the feet also, not only move when touched, but move into 
contact with objects seen, which are then tested by other tactile 
surfaces and perhaps by eye and ear. In the meantime, the 
first reactions against the tipping of head or body have developed, 



EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN INFANT 105 

SO that equilibrium is maintained against the tendency of head 
and body to move out of balance. Not only this, but equilib- 
rium is maintained while grasping, and head and body usually 
move with the hand in reaching for an object. The movements 
of different parts of the body are therefore no longer independent 
of each other, but very closely connected. Fixed, mental asso- 
ciations of sensations and movements are thus early formed. 

In this and the next quarter a new kind of movement becomes 
very prominent. Random and meaningless movements of parts 
of the body change to those repeated rhythmic and partially 
coordinated movements of various muscle groups which we desig- 
nate as play. Certain movements of limbs or vocal organs are 
produced over and over for several days, then a new one is prac- 
ticed for a while. Various combinations of movements are made, 
and the muscles and the senses are thus exercised and associated 
in countless ways, as the child amuses himself. 

In the latter part of the first year not only are movements, 
previously made, repeated in play, but movements seen and 
sounds heard are often playfully imitated and repeated over 
and over. 

The process of combination goes still further, and the child 
begins to move toward things by crawling or otherwise, or to 
stand, holding with one hand and reaching with the other, and 
at about a year to maintain equilibrium while standing and 
walking, and in getting up and down when he grasps something 
on the floor. 

Looked at in a purely objective way, the most marked change 
in the movements of a child during the first year is, therefore, 
not in number, but in complexity, coordination, and definiteness. 
From the use of one sense and one or two groups of muscles at a 
time, the child has progressed to the combined use of muscles of 
legs, body, arms, fingers, head, and eyes, in getting objects 
and obtaining visual, tactual, and auditory sensations from 



io6 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

them. The early movements were mostly unconnected and un- 
coordinated, and ended in nothing but movement ; while at 
the close of the first year they are combined and correlated with 
each other, and attain the end of changing the position of the 
child or of some object. These changes toward more complex and 
unified movement are doubtless preparatory to, and correlated 
with, corresponding changes in the conscious states of the child. 

EARLY MENTAL STATES 

"What is the baby thinking about?" is one of the most 
fascinating and puzzling of questions. Sympathetic imagination 
endows him with a thousand adult feelings and ideas, or dimly 
remembered childish states. Yet no one can represent the baby's 
ideas except in terms of his own present or former mental states. 
The important epoch included in the first year or two of life, to 
which the memory of men goeth not back, cannot therefore be 
pictured in its true colors by the most gifted child lover. 

The scientist is almost equally impotent in attempting to 
discover and describe the real mental states of an infant. He 
is perhaps strongest on the negative side; for, reasoning from 
general principles, he can say with considerable assurance what 
is not in the baby's mind, just as he can affirm that a planet with- 
out atmosphere has no animal life like our own, or that in a 
certain age in the world's history there could have been no 
animal life of a certain kind because it was too hot or too cold, 
or because there was an absence of appropriate food. When, 
therefore, the psychologist finds that the greater part of the 
cortex of the brain (which there is good reason to believe is the 
seat of consciousness) is not active during the first three months 
of life, and when he observes that nearly everything that the 
child does is sometimes done equally well, or even better, when 
asleep than when awake, and that in children born without a 
brain the movements are nearly the same as in normal children, 



EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN INFANT 107 

and when he remembers that the child cannot have any knowl- 
edge gained from experience that the adult has, he is warranted 
in saying that there is nothing in the young infant's mind suffi- 
ciently like what is in the adult's mind to warrant the use of the 
same terms. If he makes any positive suggestion as to the child's 
mental states, he will say that if there is any consciousness at 
first, it is most like, yet much more indefinite than, the vague 
feelings, almost without ideas, that are sometimes experienced 
by adults when in a drowsy state. 

The child sleeps most of the time at first, and is probably 
conscious of only the more intense stimuli. The field of con- 
sciousness, soon to become a fairyland of new experiences, is at 
first a half-formed, barren desert, with only an occasional rock 
of bodily pain or oasis of comfort clearly discernible. 

Since the only key to the mind of the young child, who cannot 
speak for himself, by which his movements may be interpreted, 
is a mental state like his own at the time of making the move- 
ments, the door to his inner mental states is forever closed to 
adults. To us every sensation has a meaning ; it is related to 
and calls up sensations like it or associated with it in past expe- 
rience. The infant, however, has no such past experience as we 
have and even when its movements are significant, the various 
sensations are not related to each other, but merely each to its 
appropriate, separate reflex. The first sound heard carries with 
it no suggestion of sounds of its class, or of an object to be seen 
or touched. It is probably only a more vivid something in the 
mild chaos of organic and movement sensations. 

The child is at first simply a wonderful mechanism whose 
parts are not all finished or connected, beginning to feel and 
become conscious of what it does. It is distinctly conscious of 
only the more intense or newer things that it does, and learns 
how things are done only after it has done them a number of 
times. Consciousness probably has no influence whatever upon 



io8 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

action for several months, but gives merely an imperfect report 
of what is being and has been done — a log book of the first 
voyage of the vessel of life, in which appear only the regular 
food watches and the unusual events of the voyage. 

It is probable that there is very little unified consciousness 
during the first quarter ; but in the second quarter, when move- 
ment becomes more complex, so that the stimulations of one 
sense are connected with those of another, consciousness probably 
becomes unified in a corresponding degree, and every experience 
becomes associated with others like or contiguous to it. Every 
sensation soon has a background of general bodily sensation and 
a fringe of past sensations. As consciousness thus becomes uni- 
fied and related, it begins to assume its rightful place as general 
director of affairs, and chooses that certain agreeable experiences 
shall be continued or repeated, and, a little later, exercises some 
influence in determining how this shall be done. 

Thus does the semiconscious and utterly helpless being acquire 
a definite and unified consciousness, and gradually take possession 
of its developing self. The functioning of reflex and instinctive 
mechanisms that are perfect at birth, and of other mechanisms 
after they become perfect, has little influence on the conscious 
self. The processes of perfecting mechanisms, developing them 
for new purposes, and combining them in various ways, are the 
chief exciters of conscious activity, and the means hy which the 
mental self grows. Every new experience illuminates and en- 
larges the field of consciousness, and extends the control of the 
growing self. 

DEVELOPMENT OF VOLUNTARY CONTROL 

In the acquisition of voluntary control over various portions 
of the body there are most interesting combinations of motor 
and mental processes. To understand them we must consider 
the ends gained by movements, both objectively and subjectively. 



EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN INFANT 109 

Many, but not all, reflex and instinctive movements accomplish 
definite ends, while spontaneous and random movements occa- 
sionally do so. Every voluntary movement must have a pur- 
pose; but the fact that some objective end is gained does not 
make it voluntary. To be voluntary there must be some idea of 
the end previous to the act by which it is gained. In complex 
volitions there is consciousness of several ends, or several means 
of attaining ends, and a choice as to which shall be secured or 
used. 

It is evident, therefore, that voluntary efforts can be made 
only after considerable experience in non- voluntary movements, 
which gives a basis for forecasting the possible and probable 
results of movements in response to famiHar stimuli. The mus- 
cular and nervous mechanism is, in part, the same, whether a 
motion is voluntary or involuntary ; but in one case the results 
are anticipated and perhaps chosen from among several possibili- 
ties, while in the other they are not. Whether will is an actual 
force in consciousness or only the resultant of the various tend- 
encies to action, it is at any rate a new state of consciousness, and 
an utterly impossible one to a young child whose motions consist 
only of separate random and reflex movements. 

The first anticipation of the results of movements probably 
arises in connection with movements of the head in search of the 
nipple, and the next, in turning the eyes toward a moving object 
or an object in peripheral vision. Such movements, however, 
do not lead directly to the more complex acts of voluntary con- 
trol, as do those of the limbs. They are so simple and reflex in 
character that unless the process is interfered with or delayed, 
there is little consciousness of any kind, and certainly no 
choice of movement or of end. The hand, however, can move in 
so many ways, each differing in character and difficulty, and for 
so many different ends, that consciousness of hand movements 
readily becomes intense, anticipatory, directive, effortful, 



no FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

selective, and hence voluntary. The acquiring of voluntary 
control of the hand is therefore a good type of all volitional 
progress. The way in which this takes place may best be indi- 
cated by notes on how the author's own little girl learned to 
grasp objects. 

^^Sixty-first day, noticed her own hand and looked at it for a 
number of seconds. Seventy-third day, put hand in her mother's 
mouth several times, her eyes being fixed on her mother's face, 
and her other hand nearly still. Her hand often went higher or 
lower or to one side, but the movement was successful and seemed 
to be called forth by the object in that position. Eighty-first 
day, held a book placed in her hands and looked at it for some 
time. One hundred and eleventh day, movements of scratching 
and pulling at things her hands touched became frequent, and 
there were some instances of reaching toward and scratching 
at objects, such as a magazine held before her. Also scratched 
at tablecloth and at a plate, and when her hand slipped off and 
came to her mouth, she uttered a dissatisfied grunt as if dis- 
appointed in not getting what she expected in the way of tactile 
sensation on the lips. 

"When lying on a lounge, has often got her hand against a 
curtain, grasped and shaken it back and forth for a long time. 
One hundred and twelfth day, got her fingers caught in a ribbon 
tied around the curtain and jerked at it till it came loose, and 
finally got it in her mouth. Later in the day drew her father's 
thumb into her mouth. He removed it, and she succeeded 
several times in getting hold of it and bringing it to her mouth. 
When not successful, gave a fretful cry, but renewed the effort. 
Sometimes her hand slipped over the thumb and came into her 
mouth, and she seemed disappointed and tried again. This 
seemed like a clear case of voluntary movement, though of the 
simplest kind, since there was probably a representation of the 
end to produce expectation of a certain tactile sensation and 



EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN INFANT iii 

cause signs of disappointment and renewed effort when she got 
a different sensation. 

^'One hundred and thirteenth day, repeatedly put her father's 
finger in her mouth, having no difficulty in doing so after she got 
hold of it. She was not, however, always successful in getting 
hold of it, sometimes one or two fingers clasped it and sometimes 
all slipped past. One hundred and fourteenth day, reached the 
finger several times without trying to put it in her mouth. One 
hundred and nineteenth day, carried watch to her mouth a number 
of times, used both hands most of the time, sometimes merely 
getting them behind the watch and pushing it, at other times 
clasping it with one or more fingers. The arms are controlled, 
but the fingers show little more than the original reflex. Head 
usually moved toward objects before and while reaching for them. 

^^One hundred and twenty-ninth day, control of fingers not 
perceptibly better. She uses both hands when object is directly 
in front, and the nearest hand when it is on one side. Reached 
for watch four or five inches beyond reach, but not as certain to 
try as when closer. Slipped her fingers along her mother's 
when her own instead of her mother's fingers touched her lips. 
This may have been accidentally successful, but it showed dis- 
satisfaction is not getting the desired sensation. One hundred 
and thirty-second day, seemed to be reaching behind the mirror 
for the face. One hundred and thirty-fourth day, can move her 
hands with considerable accuracy and rapidity within a small 
space directly in front of her, and in that space generally uses both 
hands. When the object is on one side, she generally uses the 
hand on that side. Has little control in reaching up high or 
down low. 

''Owe hundred and fifty-first day, tried to grasp nearly every- 
thing within reach, and seems to be more accurate when she does 
it very quickly than when she reaches slowly. One hundred and 
fifty-third day, spent some time in catching a swinging watch 



112 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

and letting it go. Reached for it only when it was near, and 
naturally was more frequently successful when it was swinging 
toward her than when it was swinging out. One hundred and 
sixty-eighth day, has now sufficient control of her movements 
so that toys give more pleasure than vexation. One hundred 
and seventy-first day, persistently reached for a red bow, though 
it was nearly or quite hidden from view part of the time. One 
hundred and seventy-fifth day, does not keep things in her mouth 
so much, and apparently shakes the rattle not simply for the 
movement, but also for the sound, though this is not certain. 
Often grasps things very quickly. 

^^One hundred and eighty-second day, can now grasp and hold 
in one hand a ball an inch or more in diameter. Two hundred 
and second day, has been able to take a handkerchief off her head 
for some time, and to-day succeeded a number of times in taking 
a stiff hat off her head, having difficulty only when she took hold 
too far forward and pulled it against the back of her head before 
getting it high enough. Two hundred and thirteenth day, if any- 
thing is held just out of reach in front or over her head, she will 
try one hand awhile, then the other, then give a discontented cry 
and try again. Two hundred and fourteenth day, took hold of 
her father's mustache and drew his mouth down to hers, but 
drew back when she felt the prick of the mustache. This was 
repeated several times, but the last time she did not bring his 
mouth down quite close to hers. Two hundred and fifteenth day, 
pulled her father's mouth down toward hers, but not closer 
than three inches. 

^^Two hundred and seventeenth day, looked intently at a bell 
as she struck it repeatedly, evidently associating sight, sound, 
and motion. Two hundred and thirty-fourth day, reached with 
one hand, then the other, a dozen times for toys held just up out 
of reach before stopping to protest angrily. Two hundred and 
thirty-sixth day, reached for tassels on her carriage, when she 



EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN INFANT 113 

could not see them, and sometimes cried when some one approached 
to remove them as had been done before." 

Summing up these facts, it is clear that in obtaining voluntary 
control of the hand in grasping, various non-voluntary move- 
ments are grouped together and repeated until they can readily 
be continued in various ways. These combinations are produced 
at first in response to the stimulus of some object which calls 
forth various movements, one of which has desirable results. 
At first the effective stimulus is some visual object and the desired 
result a tactile sensation on the lips. Soon representation of the 
result is sufficiently clear to produce disappointment when it is 
not obtained, and the attempt is repeated. The act then has the 
essential characteristics of a voluntary movement. This usually 
occurs between four and five months, while a month or two later 
there is shown the more complex voluntary state of representing 
the exciting stimulus, as well as the end to be secured, as when 
the child reaches for what is not in sight. At about the same 
time the end to be gained is often changed to tactile sensations 
on the hand instead of on the lips, or to muscular sensations as the 
hand is moved, or auditory sensations as the object is made to 
strike something else. When a movement is stopped because the 
consequence has proved disagreeable (as when the mustache 
was brought to the lips), we have a further complication of move- 
ment being checked by the idea of undesirable consequences. 

The muscles of the Hmbs first brought under control are the 
larger ones of the whole arm, while the space in which control 
is first exercised is directly in front and near the level of the 
mouth. 

Other movements than those of the hand come under voluntary 
control in a similar way ; first the eyes and head in turning toward 
sights and sounds, then the body in sitting, then the hands in 
grasping, and finally, near the close of the first year, the legs in 
creeping, standing, and walking, and the vocal organs in repeating 



114 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

sounds. The first of these is so largely provided for by inherited 
mechanisms that the movements soon come under the possible 
control of consciousness, while the last involves the coordination 
of so many simpler non-voluntary movements that the whole 
series is often looked upon as acquired by experience. 

A careful study of this early development of control of the hand 
and of other parts of the body shows it to be general as well as 
special. Not only does the child learn to make specific move- 
ments in getting specific objects in a certain position but he 
gains the power to adapt the movements of the hand and of 
other parts of the body to new objects in any position. Any 
significant variation in the visual sensation of the position of 
the object results in a similar variation in the movements of the 
hand in getting it. This relation may be specific, but its effect 
gives at least the appearance of general free control of hand move- 
ments. There is reason to believe that this relation between 
visual spatial sensations and movements of the limbs is not wholly 
acquired, but partly native or instinctive. In young chickens, 
colts, and calves the power to touch or avoid objects seen in a 
certain position is well developed soon after birth. In children 
it develops more slowly, but there is clear evidence that movement 
toward an attractive object is partially instinctive and not wholly 
acquired. 

Since right-handedness and left-handedness appear in some 
instances to be clearly hereditary, there must also be some heredi- 
tary relation between visual sensations and hand movements. 
It is claimed by some that left-handedness is really left-eyedness. 
However this may be, there must be some kind of inherited 
relation between visual sensations of space relations and move- 
ments in space. If this is true by heredity, much more is it true 
of the species that there are native relations between visual 
sensations and certain muscle groups. The same is probably 
the case as regards auditory sensations and the movements of 



EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN INFANT 115 

the vocal organs. These relations, native and acquired, greatly 
facilitate imitation and the learning of new movements. By 
directing the eye and the attention properly, we learn to guide 
a bicycle, draw a picture, or hit a ball. 

Most children are probably only slightly right-handed or left- 
handed and may learn to be either or both; but a few are so 
definitely of one or the other type that the attempt to change them 
results unfortunately. In general it is more convenient to be 
right-handed ; hence, only when the tendency to left-handedness 
is strong should the child be allowed to develop in that way. 
Where the left-handed tendency is very strong, attempts to 
change often result in permanent awkwardness and sometimes, 
it is claimed, in mental retardation and confusion. Ambidex- 
terity is sometimes wisely developed by some individuals. 

LEARNING TO WALK 

The tendency to locomotion, though primarily developed 
in the race as a means of nutrition and escape, is fostered in the 
individual child more by the instinct of curiosity or the desire 
for the sensations to be obtained by coming in contact with 
various objects, than by the desire for food and escape. 

The fact that children are a long while learning to walk, and 
that various movements such as rolling, crawling on stomach, 
or on hands and feet, hitching along in some form of sitting 
position, pushing one's self backward, or rapid running from 
one support to another, may be used as means of approaching 
objects, before the child attempts ordinary walking, seems to 
indicate that there is in human beings no instinctive mechanism 
for walking as there is in the case of chickens or pigs, which can 
walk almost perfectly from the first. 

On the other hand, the fact that the walking reflex (the tend- 
ency to move one foot forward when the other touches the floor, 
develops in the first or second quarter, and that the rudimentary 



ii6 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

tendency to maintain equilibrium appears even earlier, shows 
that part of the mechanism of walking is in working order at 
an early date. Walking becomes possible when its reflex ele- 
ments can be properly combined. Such an instance as the 
following shows that the whole mechanism for walking may be 
developed and its parts connected without experience, and that 
consciousness may hinder rather than help, all of which indicates 
that walking in children is more instinctive than is usually sup- 
posed. 

The instance is thus described by the father, Superintendent 
Hall, of North Adams, Mass. 

''In reply to yours of March 25th, I give you the following 
account of how my Kttle daughter Katherine learned to walk. 
She was the youngest of a family of five. The other children 
had learned to walk soon after they were a year old, and in the 
normal fashion — by being encouraged to put forth a series of 
efforts until they were able to go alone. Katherine was a normal 
child in other respects, bright, active, and healthy, yet unable 
to walk a step when she was seventeen months old. Of course 
we were anxious, fearing the cause of this inefficiency might be 
physical, especially as she persisted in crawhng and absolutely 
refused to try to help herself under the encouragement of any 
assistance. 

''At last we referred the matter to a physician, who said : 'It 
is a peculiar case, and I can hardly tell whether the difficulty is 
physical or mental. If there is no improvement in a short time, 
call me again.' Shortly afterward I came home one day at noon, 
and placing my cuffs on a table in the sitting room threw myself 
on a lounge to rest. Katherine happened to notice the cuffs 
from where she sat on the floor, and crawling across the room 
pulled herself up by one leg of the table, and reaching out with 
one hand, while she held on to the table with the other, took a 
cuff off from the table and slipped it on over her wrist. Of course 



EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN INFANT 117 

to do this she had to stand alone. I noticed it at once and was 
surprised when she reached out her other hand for the other cuff 
and sHpped that on, and then stood looking in a very interested 
way at the cuffs on both wrists. Then, to our great surprise, 
she turned toward me with a very pleased expression on her face 
and walked as confidently and easily as any child could. Not 
only this, but she immediately ran across the room, through 
another room, and around through the hallway, not simply 
walking, but running as rapidly as a child four or five years of 
age would. What surprised us most was that she did not seem 
to be wearied by her effort at all. 

''We allowed her to keep the cuffs on for ten minutes or more, 
and she was on her feet all the time. At last she sat down a 
moment, rested, and then, strange to say, got up on both feet 
without assistance, and commenced to run around the room 
again. As an experiment I took the cuffs off, and she was as 
unwilling to try to walk as before. We could not possibly induce 
her to take a single step without the cuffs. When, however, we 
allowed her to put them on, she seemed to be greatly delighted and 
walked and ran as before. The result was that I gave her an 
old pair of cuffs and allowed her to wear them for two days. 
This was the only way we could keep her from crawling. After 
that time she seemed to be able to get along without the cuffs, 
and has not crawled any since." 

Since publishing this account many similar cases have been 
reported to the author. 

Learning to walk is a good illustration of instincts not perfected 
at birth by definite connections between inner conditions and 
movements of special muscles. There is an inner impulse to 
approach attractive objects and those which have been found by 
experience to be enjoyable, and this impulse results in a variety 
of movements which, according to circumstances and age, cause 
the child to move toward the object by crawling, creeping, 



Il8 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

rolling over and over, hitching along, or walking. A child who 
is not allowed to sit or lie on the floor between the ages of seven 
and fourteen months is not likely to learn to creep. Children 
who learn to creep do not continue to do so, but later walk instead. 
The combination of an end to be gained by moving the whole 
body, with instinctive movements of various kinds combined 
in various ways by the more or less chance conditions of position 
of the child's body and limbs and the direction of the attractive 
object, result at one age in one kind of locomotion, and at another 
in a different one. The mode of locomotion fittest for the time 
being continues until a more suitable one develops. Walking 
is usually later in developing than creeping, because it is possible 
only after more of the sensory and motor apparatus concerned 
have matured and become connected in the right way. Just 
how much the maturing of nerve and muscle apparatus is in- 
dependent of exercise and how much dependent upon it we do not 
know. Neither do we know to what extent the tendency to the 
right combination of the various parts necessary to walking is 
the result of learning by chance experiences. 

RELATION OF INSTINCTS TO MENTAL ACTIVITIES 

The chief difference between a man and a photographic plate 
is that man has active instincts which impel him to do some- 
thing else besides receive and reproduce impressions. Of course 
he responds to a much greater variety of stimuli than does any 
other creature ; but the chief point is that he is not passive, but 
reaches out into the world for stimuli and responds to them in 
many self -de terminate ways. 

A child not only registers the existence of food when it appears 
before him as would a photographic plate, but the feeding instinct 
impels him to seek food and to take it; while the instincts of 
curiosity and of fear impel him to examine new objects closely 
before touching them. If another child seizes the food, the in- 



EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN INFANT 119 

stinct of anger may impel the first one to attack the offender, but 
the instinct of fear or the desire for his mother's approbation may 
restrain him. If the child is not hungry and is good natured, 
the play impulse may in a similar instance cause him to engage 
in a friendly tussle and chase to secure what neither of them cares 
particularly for except as an object of competition. Thus do 
instincts impel to action without always providing the specific 
apparatus for a definite form of movement suited to satisfying 
the impulse. In man the external movements are less definitely 
provided for than in animals and the instinctive impulse in him 
often leads to feehngs and ideas followed by movements remotely 
connected with the original instinctive impulse. 

The chief dift'erences in a human being at different stages of 
development are due not merely to experience, but to various 
instincts which are present or prominent at different periods of 
Hfe. 

As we have already seen, impulsive movements are the basis 
of voluntary control, since by no possibility can the mind know 
how to make a motion or what will be the result until the motion 
has been made and the result experienced. The different ways 
in which a child responds to the various stimuli that he receives 
are important means of distinguishing one sensation from an- 
other, and the chief means of associating them in certain ways ; 
hence, our intellectual life is based ultimately upon our reflex 
and instinctive movements. The emotions of a child also depend 
upon the ways in which he reacts to various objects, the modes of 
expression used, and the internal bodily changes that occur. His 
emotions are therefore largely the consciousness of his own re- 
actions to his surroundings. It is just as impossible to experience 
an emotion previous to its corresponding instinctive impulse 
as it is to voluntarily make a particular movement that has never 
before been made. Nothing surprises us so much as new emo- 
tions that suddenly come into our lives, as novelists have often 



120 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

shown in one sphere of instinctive development. The silking 
of growing corn is not more entirely determined by the laws of 
organic development than is the emotion of love in the youth, 
by the emergence of a new instinct from the depths of his un- 
conscious nature. 

In the higher forms of action, involving not merely control of 
movement but complex ideas and feelings, emotions seem to be the 
conscious determinants of action. Instinct and habits, however, 
really determine what feelings shall be experienced under present 
conditions and render possible the picturing of the feelings which 
may be experienced through proposed actions. 

Intellectual activity is excited by curiosity and made promi- 
nent in finding the means of securing the satisfaction of desires. 
Our whole mental life, intellectual, emotional, and volitional, 
is developed in connection with instinctive action. All activities 
of the conscious life have for their root unconscious, blind, in- 
stinctive tendencies. 

In our further study of instincts and their development, there- 
fore, we are really studying the fundamental yet unrecognized 
basis of all emotional, intellectual, and volitional development. 

Exercises for Students 

1. Report observations or printed records of the early reflex and instinc- 
tive movements of infants. 

2. Describe instances of an infant of less than a year using many parts 
of the body in a coordinate way for a single end. 

3. Mention several specific movements of an infant less than six months 
old, and give reasons for thinking them either unconscious, conscious, or 
voluntary. 

4. Report early instances of volition observed by yourself or found in 
reading. 

5. Report from observation, hearsay, or reading as fully as you can how 
one child learned to walk. 

6. Report from observation or reading instances of animals learning by 
the " trial and success method." 



EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN INFANT 121 

7 . Give illustrations of the three methods of learning in the case of persons. 
Name two or three things that may best be learned by the " trial and suc- 
cess method," by the " imitation method," and by the " method of under- 
standing," indicating in each case whether the age of the person makes any 
difference as to the prominence of the preferred method. 

8. By which method should children learn to sing? 

9. May we expect a child to know how to control a new feeling? Why? 

10. Should we strive to control a child's actions by his feelings or his 
feelings by his actions ? Why ? 

11. Is it better to do a kind act for a child or let him do one for you? 
Why? 

Suggestions for Reading 

On the general subject of infant development, read Preyer, Moore, Shinn, 
Tracy, Compayre, Vol. I, and the following articles : G. S. Hall, Fed, 
Sent., Vol. I, pp. 127-138 ; Mrs. W. S. Hall, Ch. S. Mo., Vol. II, pp. 330- 
342, 458-473, 522-537, 586-608; Darwin, Pop. Sci. Mo., Vol. LVII, 
pp. 197-205. 

On the development of voluntary control and learning to walk, see Spence, 
Pop. Sci. Mo., Vol. XIII, p. 444 ; Kirkpatrick, Psych. Rev., Vol. VI, 
pp. 275-281 ; Baldwin, Science, Vol. XVII, O. S., p. 113, or Pop. Sci. 
Mo., Vol. XLIV, p. 606, and Science, Vol. XX, O. S., p. 286, or Mental 
Developmejtt, Vol. I, pp. 47-103, 367-430 ; Dexter, Ed. Rev., Vol. XXIII, 
pp. 81-91 ; Judd, Genetic Psychology, chap, vi ; Trettein, Am. Jr. Psych., 
Vol. XII, pp. 1-57 ; Compayre, Vol. II, chap. iv. 

On relation of instincts and emotions, see James, Psychology, chapter on 
'' Emotions," and Ribot, Psychology of the Emotions, chap, vii ; Baldwin, 
Vol. II, pp. 185-220. 

Later References 

Books 

Dearborn, G. V. N. 

Fitz 

King (i) 

Major 

Peterson 

Sandiford 

Tanner 



122 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

Articles 

Dresslar, F. B. A Morning's Observation of a Baby. Ped. Sem., Dec. 

1901, Vol. 8, pp. 469-481. 
Hall, G. S. Notes on the Study of Infants. Ped. Sem., 1891, Vol. i, pp. 

127-138. 
Hall, G. S. What We Owe to the Tree Life of Our Ape-like Ancestors. 

Ped. Sem., 1916, Vol. 23, pp. 94-ii9- 
Mead, Cyrus D. The Age of Walking and Talking in Relation to General 

Intelligence. Ped. Sem., 1913, Vol. 20, pp. 460-484. 



CHAPTER VII 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUALISTIC INSTINCT 

STRENGTH OF THE INSTINCT 

The usages of polite society all tend to suppress and cover up 
this instinct, but it remains as a powerful underlying force, 
directing the feelings, thoughts, and actions of men and women. 
In times of excitement it bursts into view in a most surprising 
way. In a moment, a company of courteous ladies and gentle- 
men, apparently intent only on giving each other pleasure, may 
be transformed into a pack of wild beasts, struggling and tram- 
pling under foot their helpless companions in the effort to escape 
from a burning building. 

Even when reflective consciousness has attained to the view 
that life is not worth living, and decides upon suicide, a sudden 
change in conditions will arouse the all-powerful instinct to hve, 
and the individual then struggles for life as frantically as if it 
were the most desirable of all things. For example, a French- 
man who was on his way to drown himself, promptly climbed a 
lamp post and clung to it with desperate energy when death ap- 
peared in the form of a tigei escaped from his cage. In a similar 
way, a young lady wading into Lake Michigan to drown herself 
avoided destruction by running to shore when threatened with 
being shot if she did not do so. Each had suppressed in one 
form only the instinctive tendency to avoid death, hence sudden 
impending destruction in another form produced the usual in- 
stinctive reaction. 

So strong is the self -preservative instinct that few sane persons 

123 



124 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

commit suicide. It is also very difficult for any one to volun- 
tarily injure himself. Considerable determination is necessary 
to prick one's own finger in order to get blood for examination 
under a microscope. It is also almost impossible to refrain from 
instinctive movements when injury seems to be threatened. 
The man who offered a prize to any one who would hold his 
finger against a glass without flinching, while a rattlesnake 
struck at it from the other side, was quite safe in doing so. In 
all sudden emergencies, where blind instinct rather than reason 
controls, action is nearly always governed by the individualistic 
instinct. 

In deliberate action other instincts may temporarily attain 
ascendency in consciousness, yet none of them, as a rule, main- 
tain their prominence for long periods of time. Many coopera- 
tive and communistic experiments have failed because they were 
opposed to the all-powerful individualistic instincts. Cooperative 
institutions, which appeal to other instincts and to the individual- 
istic also without opposing the one to the other, are, on the other 
hand, grand successes. 

PROMINENCE IN THE YOUNG 

The instinct of self-preservation is not only the oldest instinct, 
but one that has been most uniformly useful to all species from 
the earHest beginnings of animal life ; hence, we should expect 
it to be strong in the young child. There is, however, a still 
more important reason for expecting it to be strong in the young 
of all animals, including man, viz., because it is the only instinct 
that can be of much use in this stage of early helplessness. Any 
tendency on the part of a young animal or child to act for the 
good of any other being than itself would be futile, and in many 
cases injurious to itself and indirectly to its species ; hence, the 
individualistic instinct must be dominant in the young of all 
species which survive. 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUALISTIC INSTINCT 125 

The dominance of this instinct in the child is due, not so much 
to its greater absolute intensity in childhood as to the fact that 
he has at first neither the power nor the tendency to use any 
other instinct. When older, other instincts develop in a form 
which leads to action for the good of others. The individual- 
istic instinct is then less prominent because it is no longer the 
only source of action. It is doubtful, however, whether the 
individualistic tendency is really decreased very much in adults, 
though its influence is partially counteracted by other instincts 
and by training. 

The young child needs not so much to act for his own good, as 
to act so as to make his necessities and desires known to his 
parents; hence the instinctive and acquired powers of expres- 
sion are made to take the place of self-care. Activity in forcing 
his wants upon the attention of adults is often more helpful to 
him in securing the means of subsistence, safety, and develop- 
ment than activity on his own account in trying to get them. 
The child, therefore, naturally becomes a persistent beggar. 
He not only makes his wants known and forces them continually 
upon the attention of parents till his desires are satisfied, but 
often seems to assume command over his elders as his servants, 
and to demand of them what he wants. This tendency is natural 
and unmoral, not immoral ; but both for the child's own good 
and that of his elders, it needs to be kept within bounds and 
directed. Even mother birds, cows, and dogs find it necessary, 
as their little ones grow up and become able to care for them- 
selves, to refuse their demands and perhaps drive them away 
to look out for themselves. In a similar way parents should 
continue to do things for a child only so long as he is unable to 
do them for himself. Even before that, social training should 
be begun by requiring him to indicate his wants quietly and 
poHtely. 

One of the most common and serious errors of parents is to 



126 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

extend and prolong their protective care to such an extent that 
children have little chance to learn the nature of the world in 
which they live. Children are saved from educative bumps 
and deprived of the opportunity of getting out of simple diffi- 
culties. 

DEVELOPMENT OF INDIVIDUALISTIC INSTINCTS INTO MOTIVES 

The individualistic instincts, like all others, are at first blind. 
All the child's early movements are for his own well-being ; hence, 
the ideas, emotions, and volitions that develop from these move- 
ments are concerned with obtaining desirable things for self, 
though he has, as yet, no clear idea of self. 

In the second and third year, when the adaptive instincts 
and the lower forms of the social instinct are very prominent, 
and the self is only partially distinguished in consciousness from 
others, whose acts and mental states are so frequently reflected 
in the child himself, action is less directly individualistic. The 
child does and feels as others around him, and sometimes seems 
equally well pleased whether he or some one else gets or does a 
thing, though in other instances he is very strenuous about being 
the one to do, taste, see, etc. 

In the fourth and fifth years, when the child has become more 
of a self-conscious being, he looks ahead to the favorable or un- 
favorable results of actions, and recognizes the fact that favor- 
able results to another often mean that they shall not come to 
him. The charming appearance of unselfishness in desiring 
others to eat, see, hear, etc., then often disappears, and he, as a 
matter of course, tries to get all good things for himself. Reflex 
sympathy and the desire for approval influence his motives and 
actions to a considerable extent; but often he tends to choose 
consciously that which will bring pleasure to himself^ regardless 
of how it will affect others. Sometimes he schemes to both 
gratify selfish impulses and to secure social approval, as did a 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUALISTIC INSTINCT 127 

little girl who had been taught to take the smaller piece, when 
she insisted on giving her brother his choice of two parts of an 
apple, instead of taking her choice first. 

By example and special training, however, the social instinct of 
sympathy and desire for approbation may be made dominant, 
but poHteness secured by punishment is likely to be superficial. 

In general, the question which the child naturally asks con- 
cerning objects and persons is, *' What are they good for ? " mean- 
ing by ''good," ''What can I get out of them?" He is the center 
of the universe, and everything and everybody is for his pleasure. 
Persons, as well as things, are valued in proportion to the amount 
of satisfaction he can get from them. 

The first few years of school fife are preeminently the period 
of selfness or individualism. The child's chief motive in life is 
to get everything possible for himself, — objects, .sensations, 
knowledge, privileges, and honors. It is the period in which 
individual rivalry is least checked by altruistic impulses. The 
interests of the child's family and special friends are looked after, 
largely because they are his. The prowess of a big brother, or 
the possessions of a father, or the goodness of a friend are merely 
a part of the young monarch's treasures, to be exhibited to those 
outside of his dominion. Their interests are to be advanced as 
a means of self-enlargement. If, however, their advantage 
should conflict with his, they at once become of secondary im- 
portance. Every new acquisition of possessions, friends, knowl- 
edge, experience and power is enjoyed as an enlargement of the 
kingdom of self. 

To be thoughtful only of the interests of others, or to be inter- 
ested in anything not concerned with the advancement of this 
kingdom of his, would be aHen to a healthy, normal child. He 
cares as Httle for things outside of his domain as did the people 
of ancient nations. The way in which the child mind relates 
everything to self is beautifully shown by asking children to give 



128 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

sentences containing such common words as cat, house, book, 
and noticing what a large proportion of the sentences bring self 
in (e.g. "My cat is white," "My uncle has a bull dog," "This is 
my book") as compared with corresponding sentences written 
by older children or adults. 

INDIVIDUALISM THE BASIS OF HIGHER DEVELOPMENT 

The extreme egoism or selfness of a child from six to ten is 
not to be deprecated (though it may need some mitigation), for 
it is an important and valuable phase of development. The 
usefulness of any individual depends upon what he is, the knowl- 
edge and power that he possesses, and the use he makes of them. 
It is therefore necessary that the first law of life should be one 
impelHng to self-enlargement and development. If the law of 
service to others were the dominant one in early life, there would 
never be a self capable of efficient service. It is fortunate, there- 
fore, that no training can entirely suppress or overshadow the 
individualistic instincts in early life, otherwise many children 
would soon be so good they would be good for nothing as men 
and women. 

Modesty is undoubtedly a most admirable thing in a man, 
especially in one who has already developed a great personality, 
but it is very disadvantageous in a child. The more pride and 
ambition a child has, so long as it is connected with active effort 
rather than passive enjoyment, the better for his future develop- 
ment. If praise and reward prompt to fresh effort (within the 
limits of his strength) , a child can scarcely have too much recog- 
nition of his achievements. What would be insufferable egotism 
in an adult is perfectly proper in the child. If the child has com- 
panions who are his equals, and is held to standards of attainment 
which require his best efforts, he may be freely encouraged in the 
belief that he is accomplishing wonders. 

Every parent and teacher should frankly recognize that the 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUALISTIC INSTINCT 129 

all-power motive to the child is gain to self. The gain to 
self should, however, take the more refined forms of securing the 
approbation of others or of demonstrating his power to do things 
for them ; but it must contribute in some way to the enlarge- 
ment of the child's self, in the minds of others and to his own 
consciousness. 

All intelligent training is based in part upon the individualistic 
instinct. If it is good training, the child will discover that he 
gets more for himself in the long run by being kind and helpful 
than by being selfish and unmindful of the wishes of others. If 
the training is bad, it will lead the child to the belief that he gets 
the most when he disregards others, and gets all he can for self. 
The worst possible training is the fond and foolish kind which 
appeals to unselfish motives (without success, of course), inflicts 
no punishment, and guards from the natural consequences of 
acts.^ A parent who guards a child from the natural results of 
his wrong acts, and a teacher who makes many rules that only 
the good children take the trouble to obey, while the bad ones 
enjoy the forbidden privileges, form the worst conceivable com- 
bination, especially if the child has no chance to play with chil- 
dren of his own age. The rough companionship of the playground 
without any attempt at control by parent or teacher would be 
much better. If he strikes another child, he gets a blow in re- 
turn which teaches him that such actions are not profitable; 
while if he strikes a fond parent he gets no blow, and by a little 
crying in addition he may get some jam. 

Even sympathy, gratitude, and all the higher virtues are based 
in part upon an adequate regard for self. Only one who has 
experienced an unpleasant mental state and felt a strong desire 
to be freed from it, can appreciate such mental states in others 
and experience gratitude for relief. The golden rule is of most 

1 For illustration, see Tanner, Journal of Childhood and AdolescencCj Vol. II, 
pp. 9i-99» 229-246. 
K 



I30 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

significance to him who cares most for himself, providing he can 
imagine the condition of the other person. 

THE FEEDING INSTINCT 

This is one of the three most distinct forms of the individualistic 
instinct and one of the first to be manifested. Physically, the 
feeding instinct is the essential one in early childhood, but men- 
tally it is of no great importance. The apparatus for satisfying 
the instinct is so nearly perfect at birth, and the sensations given 
by the first food — milk — are so mild, that the act of nursing 
produces little consciousness except of a general feeling of satis- 
faction. When the instinct is not satisfied, the sensations arising 
from hunger and from the act of crying are, however, probably 
among the first vivid conscious experiences of the child. The 
sense of taste proper plays a small part in the mental life of the 
child during the first two years. His curiosity, playfulness, and 
interest are much more readily excited by tactile, visual, and 
auditory stimuli than by taste proper. The pangs of hunger 
and the pleasure of satisfaction rather than taste sensations 
render the feeding instinct prominent in early life. 

Variety in food develops in a positive way the instinct for eating, 
so that by the time a child is three or four years old sensations 
of taste occupy a prominent place in his consciousness. This 
continues for several years, and there is probably no time in life 
when gustatory pleasures and pains are more intense than at 
five or six years of age. To be able to gratify the desire for agree- 
able food and avoid disagreeable tastes is at this time one of the 
chief motives in life. 

FEAR 

Next to feeding, the most fundamental instinct is that oi Jear^ 
which is shown in the action of escaping or avoiding danger. 
From another point of view, fear is the emotion experienced when 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUALISTIC INSTINCT 131 

such actions are performed, and especially when they are inter- 
fered with. Starting at loud sounds is one of its earliest mani- 
festations in children. 

Another early and striking evidence of this instinct is shown 
in the fear of falling which often appears at the age of one month, 
and lasts only a few weeks. This form of the instinct may never 
become conscious, since it dies out so quickly. The child may 
then enjoy being tossed and caught as he falls. Later he may be 
ready to step fearlessly off a high place and learn only by ex- 
perience to be afraid. 

The modes of manifesting fear are various, such as running, 
hiding, screaming, keeping silence, changing color, etc., but they 
are all largely instinctive, and at one time in race history were 
connected with self-preservative actions. 

All new, sudden, and strong stimuH are likely to call into 
action the fear-expressing apparatus. Sounds are more frequent 
causes of fear than sights, probably because such stimulation 
may be more strong or sudden. Aside from the strength, sudden- 
ness, and newness of the stimulus given, it is doubtful whether 
one kind of object is in itself more fear-exciting than another. 
The dangers to young animals are so various that it is doubtful 
whether in many cases any one kind of danger could have de- 
veloped a specific kind of fear, such as fear of hawks by chickens, 
of cats by mice, or of snakes by children. The important thing 
for a young animal is that he shall respond as his parents do to 
new stimuli, or if they are not present, that he hide or get away 
from possible danger. The chicken crouches when its mother 
gives the danger signal. When alone it also crouches when a 
hawk sails over. It does the same when any large object sud- 
denly appears from above. This is perhaps a partly specialized 
fear of the species which lives on the ground and is usually at- 
tacked by enemies from above. The mouse avoids the cat be- 
cause its mother does, or as it avoids all moving things which 



132 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

are new to it. The child fears a snake because of the shudders, 
exclamations and stories of adults, or possibly because of the 
strange form and movements of the reptile. 

A common form of specialized instinctive fear is that excited by 
the danger call of parents. If there is any other fear that is in- 
stinctive it is fear of darkness, but possibly that is a condition in 
which fear may readily be excited rather than a specific object of 
fear. All animals and persons are more easily frightened in 
strange surroundings as well as by strange objects. Darkness 
makes the surroundings strange and unknown ; hence, in dark- 
ness fear is readily aroused. 

In the case of children in the dark no external object is neces- 
sary to excite fear; imaginary objects are sufficient. Unless 
children have been accustomed to a light, they never become 
frightened at the dark until their imagination develops. When 
a child is capable of picturing events, the recall of any fearful 
experience, while in the dark where the eyes do not contradict 
the imagining, is sufficient to excite fear. Thus a little girl about 
two, who had been told the story of the "Three Bears," with 
realistic imitations of the large bear, suddenly developed fear 
of being left without a Hght. 

After a child has once experienced fear in the dark, that tend- 
ency is apt to continue. His imagination makes vague or vivid 
pictures out of the various objects dimly perceived and this is 
why a partially lighted room often arouses more terror than 
one wholly dark. Sometimes the more vague and indefinite 
the picture, the greater the fear, for it has the element of 
strangeness and the child has no means of demonstrating that 
it has not objective reality. Where some definite visual ob- 
ject is feared, the fear may often be allayed by bringing a 
light and showing what it is, or that nothing is really there. 

There are few children who do not, for a considerable time, 
sufEer tortures in the dark, often without the knowledge of their 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUALISTIC INSTINCT 133 

parents. An unsympathetic or ridiculing adult does not invite 
confidence; hence even if the child's fears are of sufficiently 
definite things to be expressed (as they often are not), he does 
not make many attempts to explain. He either suffers in silence 
with head covered or finds all sorts of excuses for getting adults 
to come to his room or for having a light. 

The period of greatest fear, though it varies with special ex- 
periences, is usually at about three or four years of age. No 
matter how careful parents may be about having their children 
frightened by stories or otherwise, they frequently become at 
this time virtually little '"fraid cats." Biologically, this is the 
time when they begin to act for themselves to some extent away 
from parents, and consequently the time at which readiness to 
become frightened and run home would be most useful. Psycho- 
logically, it is a time when the imagination is very active, and 
when its action is not limited by any fixed laws of possibility 
or probabiHty. Children, however, who are unimaginative, or 
who are fortunate enough to escape fearful experiences, are 
occasionally at this time literally without fear. Never having 
experienced it they do not know what it is. A single experience, 
however, in which the child is really frightened (not merely hurt), 
may transform him into an arrant coward. 

Fear should be and usually is a waning instinct, yet one that 
never entirely dies out. As the child becomes better able to 
take care of himself, and more familiar with his surroundings, 
fear in the sense of a sudden and strong emotion becomes less, 
though fear in the sense of caution or prudence is increasing. 
With progress in civilization, and knowledge which makes the 
conditions of life safer, and leads more and more to the belief 
that even the unknown is governed by known laws, fear should 
gradually die out. 

Undoubtedly, there is less fear than formerly, but many 
people suffer all their lives from fears which are usually quite 



134 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

unreasonable. Some of these fears of objects and of natural 
forces and forms, such as thunder, fire, water, caves, reptiles, 
and insects, may be survivals from more primitive conditions of 
life ; but they are probably merely transmitted from one genera- 
tion to another by social heredity. Other fears, such as of guns, 
engines, knives, etc., cannot possibly be instinctive. 

Fear in the sense of prudence, which leads one to avoid what 
is likely to bring unpleasant results, or in the sense of caution 
in regard to incurring unknown consequences, is a good thing ; 
but fear, in the sense of a sudden, strong, paralyzing emotion, 
is injurious physically, stupefying mentally and degenerative 
morally. It makes one's life miserable, weak, unworthy. Every 
effort should therefore be made to eradicate it and to develop 
courage. 

A certain kindergarten teacher had a strong fear of mice, bugs, 
etc. One day a mouse appeared in the schoolroom. Realizing 
the necessity she controlled by a great effort her tendency to 
show her feelings, and calling the children's attention to the httle 
animal's search for crumbs, she and they watched it together. 
In giving nature study lessons she resolutely concealed her 
aversion to the caterpillars and other objects which were so 
interesting to the children, and in the end her antipathies en- 
tirely disappeared. 

Fear is so powerful an instinct in children that by means of 
it they may be made to do almost anything. It should not, 
however, be used as a motive except in the milder forms, which 
develop prudence and caution rather than terror. 

As to modes of dealing with the fear of children, a few general 
principles only are clear. Occasions of fear should be avoided 
as far as may be, and when it is excited, reassurance given as 
quickly as possible. 

Not only are fears excited by actual and imaginary experiences 
of the child, but by the manifestations of fear by the child's 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUALISTIC INSTINCT 135 

companions ; hence companionship with those who are easily 
frightened should be avoided. To compel children to endure 
terrors is decidedly cruel, and utterly useless as a corrective. If 
their fears can be allayed by temporarily bringing a light or other- 
wise removing the cause of fear, or if the child can be induced to 
be ''brave" and face it himself, much is gained. Unreasonable 
fears, which are the most common and least dependent upon 
experience, cannot, as a rule, be dissipated by reasoning; but 
one can only trust to quieting assurances, time and experience, 
and the growth of courage and self-control, to effect a cure. 

Fears caused by unfortunate first experiences with a class of 
objects may usually be dissipated by reasoning and favorable 
experiences. The quicker such cure can be appHed, the better. 
For example, a two-year-old boy was frightened by a thunder- 
storm; but at his first call, suggesting rising terror, his father 
went to him and talked to him, comparing the flashes to the 
lighting of great matches, and remained with him awhile, ad- 
miring the beauty of the storm. The result was that he never 
afterward showed fear of a thunderstorm. 

Fears that cannot be overcome by reason may often be cured 
by persistent action in opposition to the fear; e.g. to get over 
the fear of cats one should not only cease to show fear of them, 
but should think of their agreeable qualities and act as if they 
were desirable pets to be with and to fondle, thus changing his 
motor and mental attitude toward them. 

THE FIGHTING INSTINCT 

The fighting instinct and its accompanying emotion, anger, 
are early aroused by anything interfering with the child's activi- 
ties or wishes. It is first manifested by crying, turning away 
the head, pushing away an offending object, and later in kicking 
and striking, and not infrequently by stamping with the feet or 
striking the head against the floor. 



136 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

In general, this emotion is more intense and easily aroused 
in children than in adults, but also very much shorter-lived. 
Within a space of less than half a minute, a boy of two fondly 
stroked his mother, then jumped from her lap in anger when she 
refused to let him do what he wished, then burst out laughing at 
something he saw. 

In dealing with this emotion care should be taken to avoid 
occasions of anger, especially when the child is hungry or other- 
wise in an irritable mood, and equal care taken that he gains 
nothing by his outburst, but rather loses something. Under no 
circumstance should the parent or teacher meet anger with 
anger, for nothing will more surely make the matter worse. 
Indifference, isolation, or a calm resistance which makes the 
child realize the utter uselessness of his passion are usually more 
effective. The reaction following a futile outburst of anger is 
likely to arouse reflections which if skillfully directed may lead 
to future efforts at self-control. 

As to the fighting instinct, and the much mooted question 
whether boys should be allowed to fight, it may be said that the 
instinct is a natural and legitimate one if not carried to excess. 
A boy with no tendency to fight under any circumstance would 
be unnatural as a child, and probably a nonentity as a man. 
Nothing can be more unwise than to tell a child he must never 
fight. It is not only unwise but wrong to absolutely prohibit 
a child from fighting — wrong to his nature, and to that of other 
boys, who will thus be tempted to impose upon him. Fighting 
is a crude form of social action adapted to the early stage of 
human development, and may result in valuable lessons. 

On the other hand, as a rule, the tendency to fight needs no 
encouragement. The best corrective for extreme pugnacity is, 
however, an encounter with a superior in the art, rather than the 
words or blows of some one in authority. 

Competition is a form of fighting that is very prominent all 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUALISTIC INSTINCT 137 

through life. The tendency to individual competition is very 
strong the first half-dozen years of school Kfe and may very 
properly be utilized in school. Care should be taken to make 
it fair to all, and after a time it should take the form of competi- 
tion of groups rather than of individuals. In this form it is of 
course more social than individualistic. 

Exercises for Students 

1. Give illustrations of the strength of individualistic instincts in adults. 

2. Give proof showing the uselessness to the species of any other than 
individualistic acts by children. 

3. Give a number of observations you have made, showing how children 
are governed by individualistic motives. 

4. It will be well to make the experiment of having children and adults 
write sentences containing common words, and note to what extent self is 
brought in. 

5. Two children of four and six, who went to buy a present for baby 
sister and for grandma, could hardly be prevented from buying things that 
neither baby nor grandma could use, though attractive to children of their 
own age. Why was this? 

6. Mention a number of ways of using rivalry in school. 

7. Women are more personal in their relations than men ; they are also 
better primary teachers. Is there any relation between these two qualities? 

8. Which should a teacher praise, perfectness of results or individual 
effort and achievement? Why? 

9. Which would you rather have, a child with too much or too little 
regard for and confidence in self? Why? 

10. Illustrate how a child may be led to see that he can get more pleasure 
by obedience and kindness than by the opposite. 

11. A little girl who had often been reproved for not persisting in her 
tasks showed a great deal of gratitude when her father worked a long while 
to make something for her. Why was this ? 

12. Give illustrations of sympathy and gratitude of children. 

13. Report observations or reminiscences of the prominence of the desire 
in children for good things to eat. 

14. Give a full report of your own fears at different ages, also report ob- 
servations that you have made. 



138 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

15. Give evidence for and against the view that there are special instinc- 
tive fears. 

16. Illustrate the importance of first experiences in giving rise to fears. 

17. Show how caution may be developed without exciting fear. 

18. Report from observation and reading modes of treating anger. 

19. Discuss evils and advantages of fighting among boys and the possi- 
bilities of regulating and redirecting the instinct by having them engage 
in boxing, football, or hard work of any kind, and by teaching them to 
attack causes of exasperating conditions instead of persons concerned in 
them. 

Suggestions for Reading 

On the instinct of self-preservation, see Drummond, Ascent of Man, chap. 

vi, and Ribot, Psychology of Emotions, pp. 199-206, and on egoism and 

altruism, consult psychologies, especially Hoefding. 
On the early emotions and their expression, see Compayre, Vol. I, chap, v ; 

also Preyer, Tracy, et al. 
On fear, read Ribot, pp. 207-217 ; Hall, Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. VIII, pp. 147- 

249 ; Stanley, Psycho. Rev., Vol. I, pp. 241-256 ; Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. IX, 

pp. 418-419 ; Barnes, Studies in Ed., Vol. I, pp. 18-21 ; Calkins, Ped. 

Sem., Vol. Ill, pp. 319-323; Sitwer, Kg. Mag., Vol. XII, pp. 82-87; 

Tracy, pp. 44-47; Preyer, Part I, pp. 164-172; Sully, Studies in 

Childhood, chap, vi ; Rowe, Outlook, Sept. 4, 1898, p. 234. 
On anger, read Hall, Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. X, pp. 516-591 ; Ribot, pp. 218- 

229; Tracy, pp. 47-49- 

Later References 

Books 
Bolton Drummond Watson 

Bruce Thorndike (8) 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RACIAL INSTINCT 

LATENESS OF DEVELOPMENT 

The term " racial instinct " includes all native tendencies to 
produce and care for the young. Since sexual reproduction is 
the rule in all animal life except in a very few of the lowest forms, 
and since it has been necessary among all species that have sur- 
vived, it might be supposed that the racial instinct would appear 
in man at a very early age. This instinct, however, does not, 
as a rule, appear with much prominence until more than a dozen 
years after birth; hence primitiveness and universal usefulness 
cannot, in this case at least, be the most important factors 
governing the order of the development of instincts in the 
individual. Evidently the principle of usefulness, as deter- 
mined by degree of maturity of the young animal and the con- 
ditions under which he must live, is the factor of greatest 
significance here. 

All physical and mental tests show that the differences be- 
tween boys and girls are sHght up to ten years of age. As a rule, 
boys and girls exercise very little sexual influence upon each 
other until just before puberty, though there are of course many 
exceptions. Most of the Httle ''love affairs" between small 
boys and girls are not greatly different from the chumming of 
those of the same sex. 

At puberty, however, there is a change. At first it is mani- 
fested in a slight shyness in each other's presence, or in repug- 

139 



I40 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

nance to the companionship of the opposite sex. A little later 
there is a subtle attraction toward persons of the opposite sex, 
and a marked tendency to dress and act differently in their 
presence. This tendency soon becomes very strong. In the 
meantime, distinct sexual feehngs may have been experienced in 
connection with dreams or otherwise. 

In the ideal normal development the sexual feeHng and im- 
pulse are unconsciously the basis of the attraction toward the 
opposite sex, and of the desire to attract the notice of its members 
and please them. The age of love and romance has come, and 
well for the youth is it if in loving he is conscious only of the 
physical beauty and moral and intellectual worth of his love, 
while the unconscious sex passion remains an unrecognized but 
all-powerful force, impelling him to devote himself unreservedly 
to the object of his regard. 

There are, however, earlier manifestations or premonitions of 
one form of the racial instinct in caring for pets and younger 
children by both sexes, and in doll play, chiefly by girls. It 
may be, however, that such care- taking activities are the result 
of social influence and imitation, or, as Hall suggests, of fetichism 
rather than of the development of the racial instinct. 

The protective instinct is very strong in the higher animals 
for brief periods, while their young are helpless ; but in man it 
is much more lasting and of a higher form, leading to care for 
intellectual and moral, as well as physical welfare. Parents live 
again in their children and strive to secure for them a broader, 
better, and happier life than they themselves have had. All 
normal persons have the impulse to protect and assist the weak 
and helpless, and the higher spiritual instincts can only be 
satisfied in this way. All good teachers, especially of younger 
children, have this instinct in a marked degree. Teaching, in 
a measure, takes the place of parenthood in the development 
and maturing of character. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RACIAL INSTINCT 141 

RELATION OF THE EACIAL INSTINCT TO OTHER, IMPULSES AND 

FEELINGS 

Since the racial instinct is and has been in all ages absolutely 
necessary to the continuation of the species, and is in its very 
nature both individual and social, it has become associated with 
all forms of action. 

On the one hand, it has developed the fighting tendency, 
since fighting for a mate is the most common form of combat. 
The tendency to competition is thus increased, courage is de- 
veloped, and ambition aroused. On the other hand, it has 
developed the opposite tendency of seeking the favor of a mate. 
Most male animals engage in some kind of courtship in which 
they exhibit their powers and charms to the best advantage. 

The tendency to certain forms of play and to adornment is 
also increased by the sexual impulses. Darwin and others hold 
that there is a close relation between the development of the 
aesthetic sense and sexual selection. It is significant that love 
is the most frequent inspiration to artistic productions in poetry, 
painting, and music. Lancaster finds that the appreciation of 
beauty is greatly increased at puberty. There is good reason, 
therefore, for holding that the aesthetic feeHngs and impulses 
are closely related to this instinct. 

It is evident, without discussion, that the social instincts and 
feelings are only extensions of the racial instinct from the family 
to larger groups. 

Moral impulses and feelings are evidently related to the 
racial instinct, since one of the first and most important forms 
of ownership is the ownership of a mate, and resulting from such 
ownership are certain rights and duties. In this instinct we 
find the first impulse to please, help, and guard others instead of 
to act wholly for self. The virtues of diligence in seeking food, 
and courage in fighting rivals and defending offspring, are 



142 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

developed in the males, and those of patience and tenderness 
in the females. 

The relation of the racial instinct to the religious was long ago 
suggested by the fact that revivals and religious excitement 
were frequently accompanied by many engagements and mar- 
riages. Modern research has confirmed this view and shown that 
in all ages and among all peoples, rehgion and the sexual impulse 
are related in some way. The exact causal relations are not 
yet clear, but both instincts involve something of the same feel- 
ing of love, reverence, and self-devotion to the object of one's 
love. Hence religious awakening frequently results in love for 
some one of the opposite sex, and love often leads to religious 
interest. For similar reasons sexual and religious excesses and 
abnormalities are frequently associated. 

It is evident that the racial instinct is not only necessary to 
the life of the species, but also to the health of the individual 
physically and spiritually. No other instinct, therefore, exer- 
cises such a profound and far-reaching influence upon character. 

RIGHT DEVELOPMENT OF THE RACIAL INSTINCT 

Since the racial instinct is one of the most powerful of in- 
stincts, and in man is related to all phases of his nature, it is 
especially important that it develop along right lines. In order 
that this take place there must be avoidance (i) of an excessive 
or perverted development, and (2) of unfortunate associations 
in consciousness. 

(i) Sex feelings and perverted functioning of the instinct 
sometimes occur in young children and even in infants, but most 
commonly at puberty. Looking at the matter from the physio- 
logical side, we note that not infrequently some physical defect 
is the cause of sex excitement and perversion in childhood. 
Circumcision is often helpful in preventing such premature 
development in boys. Uncleanness and irritation produced by 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RACIAL INSTINCT 143 

clothing are to be avoided as frequent exciters of the organs. 
The ganglion especially concerned in the sex instinct is located 
in the lumbar region of the spinal cord, and heat is a most potent 
stimulus ; hence the sleeping of a child with back to a feather 
bed or to a companion, especially in a warm room or under thick 
covers, should not be permitted. Stimulating food should be 
avoided, and as puberty is approached it is especially important 
that the child have plenty of outdoor exercise and something to 
occupy mind and body. 

From the social side it is desirable that boys and girls should 
play together freely without sex distinctions being made promi- 
nent. Social customs usually demand different conduct on the 
part of girls, but it were well to make the differences as slight as 
possible, before ten at least. Joking young boys or girls about 
their beaus is more objectionable than pulling at buds on the 
rosebush long before they are ready to open. Boys and girls 
should be permitted to remain good comrades and chums as long 
as possible without any thought of love. 

There is no reason whatever for separating boys and girls in 
primary schools. In secondary schools and colleges there are 
many arguments on both sides. There is no doubt, however, 
that sexual development is more normal and healthy when the 
sexes are together a great deal than when they are separated. 
This, and the fact that the best education for life is most like 
the life to be lived, are strong arguments for coeducation in this 
country, where men and women meet so much on equal planes 
after they leave school. 

(2) The question of greatest practical importance regarding 
the racial instinct is, '^ What conscious associations with the 
impulse shall be formed?" The associations may be low 
and vile, or high and pure. In the one case, selfish sensualism 
is likely to result, and in the other, altruistic devotion and social 
service. 



144 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

This matter is closely connected with the question of how boys 
and girls shall acquire a knowledge of sex functions. 

It may be asserted that in the case of this as in other instincts 
it is best to let the instinct gradually and naturally come into 
consciousness as it begins to function. This would be a good 
way to do were it not for a few very practical reasons against it. 

In the first place, social customs and moral principles do not 
permit the functioning of the instinct except in a very limited 
and prescribed way, and that not until long after the instinct 
has become very strong ; hence the necessity of controlling the 
instinct must be learned artificially rather than by the natural 
social punishment following indulgence. 

Second, ignorance of sex functions cannot be preserved in 
boys or girls who associate with others. They inevitably ac- 
quire some knowledge, and that usually of the filthiest sort. 

In the third place, the sex instinct, not having opportunity for 
its natural functioning, is likely to produce unnatural modes of 
gratification, whose evil effects are unknown to the youth. Re- 
cent studies indicate that this is the case among nine tenths of 
the best boys. Such unnatural gratification is injurious physi- 
cally when carried to excess, as it often is, and more or less damag- 
ing morally even if not carried to excess. This is especially 
true where the imagination plays a large part in the indulgence. 
The fountains of pure love, manhood, and decency are often 
forever befouled. The youth is thereby unfitted for the highest 
type of love, the most perfect union with one of the other sex, 
and the purest fatherhood. His social, aesthetic, moral, and re- 
ligious capacities are also almost inevitably undeveloped or 
perverted. 

The importance of giving the sexual impulse right associations 
is very much emphasized by recent studies of sexual abnormali- 
ties. It seems that, on the one hand, almost anything, by means 
of association, may become a stimulus to the sexual feelings; 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RACIAL INSTINCT 145 

while, on the other hand, the unexpended sexual energy may be 
utilized in almost any line of physical, emotional, or intellectual 
life. Science, religion, and philanthropy, as well as art, litera- 
ture, and industry, may be promoted, therefore, by the use of the 
unexpended energy of the all-powerful sexual impulse, diverted 
by appropriate associations into these channels. 

It is surprising how long civilized people have continued to 
beheve in the idea that children may be kept innocent sexually 
by keeping them ignorant of sex functions It has always been 
a double failure, for the attempt to keep children ignorant has 
almost universally failed ; hence on that score the choice is neces- 
sarily between half knowledge reeking with secret filth and evil 
suggestions, and full satisfying knowledge drawn from the pure 
fountain of parental wisdom, accompanied with and suggestive 
of high feelings and holy impulses. 

It is generally acknowledged that the sexual impulse is in- 
evitably one of the most powerful inner life tendencies, especially 
during the adolescent period. This instinct may be the basis 
of all manly and womanly virtues, stimulating to love, tender- 
ness, devotion^ courage, and high aspiration in social, aesthetic, 
moral, and religious life, or the foul source of hate, brutality, 
self-indulgence, weakness, and low desires, in a purely selfish 
and beastly life ; yet, as a rule, young people are allowed to re- 
main ignorant of all this. 

No parent who loved his children would permit them to go 
out from his care into new surroundings, sure to make or mar 
them morally, without seeking to prepare them for avoiding 
dangers and securing benefits in the new conditions of life. 
The adolescent is entering such a life ; hence there is no excuse 
for allowing him to enter it without some foreknowledge of the 
facts, possibilities, and dangers to be faced. 

The imperfect knowledge gained from companions is both 
unsatisfactory and misleading. Lancaster found in the posses- 



146 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

sion of one advertising firm, seven hundred and five thousand 
letters from boys who had thus consulted quacks regarding their 
perverted habits and real or supposed diseases. Some had paid 
hundreds of dollars for treatment, when the symptoms described 
were perfectly normal (such as sexual dreams). Many of the 
boys were suffering untold agonies because they supposed they 
were ruined physically, socially, and morally. They dared not 
speak to parent, family physician, or adult friend, but poured 
out their whole souls to these distant and unworthy strangers. 

As to when the knowledge should be given, the answer is plain, 
i.e., when the child first questions regarding it and whenever 
further questions call for fuller explanations. An unanswered 
question is insistent ; curiosity once aroused, grows by attempts 
of others to suppress or divert it, and the matter is almost surely 
dwelt upon secretly, and frequently knowledge is surreptitiously 
sought. If one waits till the advent of puberty, the mind of 
the youth is probably already befouled, and in any case, very 
much directing of attention to the matter at this time may 
stimulate undesirable subjective states. To speak frankly for 
the first time to a child of this age is also so embarrassing that 
not one parent in a thousand dare attempt it, though he knows 
it to be his duty. On the other hand, the perfect and uncon- 
scious innocence of the child of four who asks where he came 
from or about parts of his body, makes plain, unabashed speak- 
ing comparatively easy to adults who ordinarily cannot free the 
subject from its, to them, evil suggestions. Further and fuller 
information should be given as the child grows older. The tend- 
ency on the part of the child to go to the parent for information 
on this subject as frankly and freely as on other subjects, in- 
stead of seeking it secretly or of evil companions, should be 
carefully preserved. 

Perfect truthfulness and frankness is the one essential, though 
much is gained by giving this truth sacred associations. Books 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RACIAL INSTINCT 147 

written for the purpose of giving sex information may be useful, 
but should not wholly take the place of frank talks between 
parent and child. Teachers may sometimes be very helpful 
to young people whose parents have neglected their duty in 
this regard. 

TEACHING SEX HYGIENE AND MORALS 

There is much difference of opinion at the present time as to 
the wisdom of giving instruction in sex hygiene and morals in 
school. Although admitting that such instruction should be 
given in the home, it is claimed with truth that the majority of 
homes are not giving it and that therefore the school should 
take up the neglected work. On the other hand, it may be said 
that effort might better be directed toward educating parents 
in the performance of this duty than imposing it upon teachers, 
who are less fitted for it in many ways. Instruction by a spe- 
cialist may serve as a temporary expedient in school, and perhaps 
be of permanent value. 

It is not likely, however, that the situation will ever be ade- 
quately met by special courses in sex hygiene in the public 
schools. The true solution will rather be found in giving such 
instruction regarding reproduction as naturally goes with the 
various subjects taught, instead of omitting those topics. The 
processes of reproduction and embryonic development should 
be treated with the same frankness and fullness in nature study, 
physiology, and biology as are other less important and inter- 
esting life processes. 

In the high school the instruction needed is not merely physi- 
ological, but social and moral. Right social habits and ideals 
of morality are more necessary than knowledge. 

Neither is it sufficient to show the possible dangers to self of 
excessive and irregular sexual conduct on the part of young 
people. Such teaching, even if it does not appeal to the spirit 



148 



FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 



of adventure rather than fear, will lead only to selfish caution. 
The fact that a future wife or child may be the innocent victim 
of one's self-indulgence may serve as a much more potent and 
noble motive for self-control. 

Something more than negative teaching is, however, needed. 
Ideals of the highest types of sexual love as portrayed in litera- 
ture should be brought to young people, and along with that 
there should be the greatest care exercised in the high school in 
promoting free, refined social relations between young people in 
accordance with the best social usages. By these positive, yet in- 
direct means, much more may be accomplished than by occasional 
direct negative teaching of the evils following wrong conduct. 

Suggestions for Reading 

On the significance of the racial and social instincts, read Drummond, 
Ascent of Man, chaps, viii and ix ; Ribot, Psychology of the Emotions ^ 
pp. 248-259, 275-289; Small, Fed. Sem., Vol. VII, pp. 13-68. 

On the general problem of sex, see Geddes and Thompson, Evolution of 
Sex; Ellis, Man and Woman; Clark, Sex in Education. 

On the sexual and social characteristics at puberty, see Lancaster, Fed. 
Sem., Vol. V, pp. 61-128, and any other articles on "Adolescence." 
See also Bell on " Love between the Sexes," Am. Jr. Psych. ^ Vol. XIII, 
pp. 335-354; Brockman, Ped. Sem., Vol. IX, pp. 255-276. 

On information regarding sex functions, see Hart, Jr. Ch. and Ad., April, 
1902, pp. 107-116 ; Barnes, Studies in Ed., Vol. I, pp. 301-308, and the 
best of the books described in the latter article. 







Later References 








Books 




Andrews 




Hall, W. (i & 2) 


Lowry 


Bigelow 




Healy 


Morley 


Bolton 




Henderson, C. R. 


Morrow 


Brill 




Holt, E. B. 


Slaughter 


Foster 




Hood 


Starr 


Hall, G. S. 


(i) 


King (4) 


WiUison 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RACIAL INSTINCT 149 

Articles 

Eddy, W. H. An Experiment in Teaching Sex Hygiene. Jr. Educ. 

Psychol., 1911, Vol. 2, pp. 451-458. 
Hall, G. Stanley. The Needs and Methods of Educating the Young 

People in the Hygiene of Sex. Ped. Sem., 1908, Vol. 15, pp. 82-91. 
Schmitt, Clara. The Teaching of the Facts of Sex in the Public School. 

Ped. Sem., 1910, Vol. 17, pp. 229-241. 
Smith, Theodate L. Types of Adolescent Affection. Ped. Sem., 1904, 

Vol. II, pp. 178-203. 



CHAPTER IX 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOCIAL INSTINCT 

FORMS OF THE INSTINCT 

Men are preeminently social beings. Among all races of 
men are to be found, not only families^ but larger aggregations, 
living in close proximity and association with each other. This 
is necessarily so, since solitary individuals have little chance of 
survival in the struggle for existence. Desire for companion- 
ship is the natural inheritance of an ancestry that must have 
sought it in order to survive. Hermits are therefore rare ex- 
ceptions, while to most persons solitude is the greatest of punish- 
ments. 

This instinct is manifested in various kinds of native reactions 
to persons, such as observing, imitating, competing, and is also 
shown in several rather distinct forms, (i) in the tendency to 
seek the companionship of others, or gregarioiisness ; (2) in the 
impulse to feel as others do, or sympathy; (3) in efforts to please 
others, or love of approbation; (4) in competitive and co- 
operative activity; (5) in loyalty and altruism. Ambition is 
the product of one or more of these tendencies. 

(i) The gregarious instinct needs to be prominent in the 
young, as their life depends upon their associations with adults. 
Most children manifest a desire for the presence of adults before 
they can walk. A Httle later, though ordinarily shy of strangers, 
they seek the protection of any human being, if frightened by an 
animal. As early as the second year they manifest great pleasure 
in the company of children near their own age. Evidently they 

150 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOCIAL INSTINCT 151 

feel the greater likeness to themselves, and this ''consciousness 
of kind" produces a relationship different from that with adults. 
Young children not only enjoy the company of other children 
as they cannot that of older people who are so different, but they 
also often understand each other much better than adults under- 
stand them. 

Association with persons who are older, and with those who 
are younger, gives pleasure and valuable social development; 
but these are produced in greatest measure by association with 
those of one's own age, where there is both give and take, coupled 
with a better understanding and efforts for common ends. Chil- 
dren, even as early as the second year, receive an education from 
being with those of their own age that can be obtained in no 
other way. The child who is never allowed to be with other 
children is deprived of a valuable birthright, and can never be 
quite the same socially as he would have been had he associated 
fully with other children. A child may be better in some ways 
and learn more by being kept with adults, but never can his 
whole nature be so fully developed. 

Chums exercise a powerful influence over each other where 
the relation is continued for a long time, and this more or less 
complete sharing of life with another is a valuable experience. 
If, however, the relation is long continued, and is so close that 
there is no association with other persons, the effect is narrowing, 
because both are cut off from a wider social life. Again, if one 
of the chums is always the leader and the other a follower, the 
results are unfortunate, for every child should have experience 
in both capacities and also in competition with friends and equals. 

(2) Sympathy is closely related to, and probably, to some 
extent, the product of, reflex imitation. The child reflects the 
emotional expression of others, and as a result feels somewhat 
as they do. Children, therefore, readily cry in terror, or laugh 
with glee, when those around them do so. 



152 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

Real sympathy, of course, appears only when the child not 
only feels somewhat as others do, but consciously represents them 
as having feelings like his own. This is likely to occur in the 
third year. When the idea is once developed, it is likely to be 
extended not only to persons, but to animals, flowers, and even 
sticks and stones. The young child does not clearly distinguish 
himself from other things ; hence his mental states are readily 
projected into them. He thinks of other things as feeHng as he 
does ; hence all nature seems to rejoice or weep with him. When 
something in which he is interested is injured, he also feels the 
injury much as if it were himself. The child is thus, in a way, 
the most sympathetic of beings, because he is identified with 
everything that he knows. He begs that relief may be given 
as if he himself were the sufferer, as indeed he is to a considerable 
extent. 

On the other hand, when interested in himself and his own 
actions, it is often hard to get him to think of any one else. As 
he gets a little older, and distinguishes more clearly between 
his own experiences and those of others, the individuaUstic in- 
stinct takes the lead, and rarely does he feel an impulse to take 
suffering in place of another. 

Again, the basis of a child's sympathy is his own experience ; 
hence he is often indifferent to the deepest joys and sorrows of 
adults, though very sympathetic toward those who are annoyed 
by what is to him a cause of keen suffering. 

In order to have sympathy aroused, one must not only have 
had experience of the kind concerned, but his imagination must 
be excited so that he puts himself in the place of the sufferer. 
Boys are often cruel, not because they wish to cause suffering, 
but merely because they enjoy seeing the victim make queer 
motions, without once thinking how it feels. Sympathy, there- 
fore, depends not only upon experience, but also upon the im- 
agination. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOCIAL INSTINCT 153 

(3) Love of approbation has its origin in the race, perhaps in 
the fact that approbation of mates must be sought, and that the 
animals which do not make themselves agreeable to the group 
they belong in, are likely to be driven out to die. At any rate, 
the desire for approbation is very strong in young children, even 
when not developed by experience. The tendency to reflect 
the emotional signs and feelings of others, and thus to share 
their pleasure or disgust, is perhaps the basis of the child's 
desire to be looked upon with favor. 

Even before a child can talk, he seems to be affected by words 
of approval or disapproval, if they are uttered in the appropriate 
tone of voice and with the fitting gestures and expression of face. 
When the fighting or competitive instinct is not aroused, the child 
is very sensitive to expressions of approval or disapproval from 
any one against whom he feels no antagonism at the moment. 
At first he cares most for approval of parents, later of teachers, 
then of companions. At puberty his ambitions are stirred and 
he wishes for the approval not merely of individuals, but for that 
of the world; in other words, he wishes to make a name and 
become famous. In middle life most men care more for their 
reputation, or, in other words, for the opinion others have of 
them, than for their own personal needs and individualistic 
desires. So strong is this instinct that what we eat, wear, read, 
and do are largely determined by it. The desire for approval 
never dies out, even in the breast of the most hardened crimi- 
nal, who is often a hero to members of his own gang. 

Children are not only greatly influenced by praise and blame ; 
but they act, to a considerable extent, as parents, teachers, and 
others expect them to act. Children thus often become what 
their teachers believe them to be, and many a boy has been saved 
by the faith reposed in him by teacher, parent, or friend. It 
is therefore very important that educators should see the good 
in children. No one who has not a large faith in humanity, and 



154 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

in the possibilities for good in every boy and girl, should ever 
enter the schoolroom as a teacher. 

The approval of companions as compared with that of parents 
and teachers gains in influence with advancing years. The 
approval desired is not merely personal approval of individuals, 
but of the social group as a whole. In other words, the child 
comes to have more and more regard for the public sentiment 
of the social group to which he belongs. After a few years in 
school the public sentiment of a group of boys, as expressed in 
taunts, such as, ''girls' work," or ''tied to mother's apron string," 
is a more powerful stimulus than the words or even the blows of 
the parent or teacher. 

In the early years parents and primary teachers who have the 
love of their children may get them to do almost anything by 
appealing to the desire for personal approval; but as children get 
older they care more and more for the public sentiment of their 
social group. The successful grade teacher must therefore learn 
to understand, mold, and use public sentiment in governing 
her school ; while the high school teacher must do the same, but 
may also rely upon the general principles of conduct accepted by 
the world. 

(4) Competition and cooperation, although in some respects 
opposed to each other, are alike supported by this powerful 
tendency. Doing as others do is a crude form of imitation, while 
the sight of another engaged in the same occupation as ourselves 
stimulates to more vigorous exertion. Whether a given situa- 
tion shall result in rivalry or cooperation depends largely upon 
whether the end desired can apparently best be gained by sur- 
passing others or by supporting their efforts. The most un- 
desirable form of rivalry appears when, instead of endeavoring 
to surpass others, one attempts to interfere with their success. 
This is allied to jealousy and is more prominent in those who are 
inferior to their rivals in the power being tested. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOCIAL INSTINCT 155 

The instinctive character of the competitive instinct is shown 
by the fact that competitors in a race, whether they be horses 
or men, make higher records than when running alone. For this 
reason records of paced and unpaced races are kept separately, 
the former always being more swift. 

The competitive instinct is not prominent in small children, 
but from about seven years of age until near maturity its power 
increases. From about nine years on, few games are enjoyed 
that have not in them an element of competition and almost any 
sort of work may become a game if rivalry of the right kind and 
intensity is associated with it. 

Such competition is naturally at first individual, one person 
striving to beat another ; but it is easy to so arrange the contest 
that a group shall compete as a whole with another group. 
This prepares the way for cooperation and almost inevitably 
leads to it. It is soon found that success can best be obtained 
by agreement as to how all shall act or what parts each one shall 
take. A common end to be gained and an understanding as 
to the part that each shall take in securing it, are the essentials 
in all cooperative efforts. If cooperative effort is directed not 
so much toward securing the end as in preventing the other 
group from gaining it, something like war results. 

(5) Loyalty and altruism, the highest forms of the social in- 
stinct, are shown in the tendency to act for the good of the social 
group of which one is a part, instead of merely seeking their 
companionship, feeling as they do, or seeking their approval. 
This tendency appears more or less prominently in the early 
teens. 

At this time, when the youth first becomes capable of con- 
tributing to the life of the race, and of actually doing something 
for the group to which he belongs, his ambitions are aroused, 
and he dreams and plans for great deeds and great honors. The 
desire for approval is strong, but there is also a genuine impulse 



156 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

to self-sacrifice. The youth of all ages have been ready to risk 
life, limb, and reputation, not chiefly because they are ignorant 
and rash, but because they have an instinctive tendency to dis- 
regard self and act for others. 

Youths are now also genuinely selfish, since if a selfish act is 
done at this time it may be in opposition to an altruistic impulse, 
while before this it may have involved only a choice between 
immediate and remote pleasure to self. True selfishness emerges 
only when both the lower individuaHstic and the higher altruistic 
impulses are felt. The adolescent may therefore be the most 
selfish or the most self-sacrificing of beings, and is often each by 
turns. 

The development of the impulse to social service is greatly 
favored by experience of all kinds in working with others for 
common ends. In such activities the individual's Hfe is en- 
larged, and in contests of group with group he subordinates his 
personal interests to the success of his party, thus securing the 
broader pleasures of the social life. 

We find, then, the development of the social instinct marked 
by increased regard for the interests of others and for law. Laws 
come to mean not merely the rules of action which bring to the 
child the most favorable results, but standards of conduct to be 
conformed to, whether agreeable to self or not, because they are 
for the good of the social group. This tendency is shown at 
the beginning of the teens, in class spirit in the school, in group 
games on the playground, in children's societies, and in the forma- 
tion of gangs on the streets. Rivalry of group with group may 
be even more fierce than ever was individual rivalry at the height 
of the individuaHstic stage of development. The greater the 
rivalry, however, between groups, the greater the class spirit 
within the groups. 

The social group, whose interests are regarded and promoted 
sometimes by self-sacrifice, is at first very small. Only slowly 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOCIAL INSTINCT 157 

does the social impulse broaden into general philanthropy and 
feeling of human brotherhood. Class spirit is a phase of social 
development that needs to appear in a radical form and in con- 
nection with rivalry as a preparation for the higher phases of 
social development. It should therefore be encouraged, but care 
should be taken that there shall be frequent change and en- 
largement of the social groups engaged, otherwise there is arrest 
of development, narrow prejudice, and partisanship, rather than 
broad sympathy and philanthropic effort. 

Exercises for Students 

1. Give illustrations showing the strength of the gregarious instinct in 
adults, children, and animals. Report instances of showing off and shy- 
ness, as illustrations of the social instinct in children. 

2. Give examples showing desire for companionship with those of one's 
own age, and the advantages of such companionship. 

3. Describe one or more instances of chumming you have known, and 
the effects upon each of the chums. 

4. What are the characteristics of a leader? Should every child have 
some experience as a leader ? How may he get it ? 

5. What kind of chums do children desire? Report observations or 
reading. 

6. Does being an only child, or the eldest or youngest of the family, 
have any special influence on development ? What ? 

7. Describe instances of sympathy on the part of children. 

8. Show that experience and imagination are necessary to sjmipathy. 

9. Show how large a part love of approbation plays in social life and 
morals. 

10. Show how the teacher may utilize the love of approbation of children. 

11. In what grades has personal approval most influence? In what 
grades is public sentiment more potent ? 

12. Discuss the kinds and degrees of self-government that may best be 
used at different ages. 

13. Illustrate the prominence of altruistic ideals in the teens from experi- 
ment or observation. 

14. Discuss the social value, to yourself and others, of membership in 
societies of various kinds to which you or they have belonged. 



158 



FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 



Suggestions for Reading 

On boys' clubs and other social activities of childhood, see Sheldon, Am. 
Jr. Psych., Vol. IX, pp. 425-448; Forbush, Fed. Sem., Vol. VII, pp. 
307-346 ; The Boy Problem, chaps, ii and iii ; Buck, Boys' Self-Governing 
Clubs; Riis, Children of the Poor, chap, xiii ; Gladden, '' The Junior 
Republic at Freeville," Outlook, Oct. 31, 1896 ; Shaw, " Vacation Camps 
and Boy RepubHcs," Rev. of Rev., May, 1896 ; Johnson, " Rudimentary 
Society Among Boys," Johns Hopkins Univ. Studies, republished in 
Teachers College Record, May, 1901, pp. 9i~94- 

On chums, see Bonser, Ped. Sent., Vol. IX, pp. 221-236 ; and on leadership, 
Barnes, Studies in Ed., Vol. I, pp. 295-297, and on only child, see Bohan- 
non, Ped. Sent., Vol. V, pp. 475-496. 

On social ideals and attitude toward law, see Barnes, Studies in Ed., Vol. I. 
pp. 213-216, 254-258, 259-263, Vol. II, pp. 5-30, 37-40, 123-140, 141- 
150, 203-217, 218-230; SuUy, Studies in Childhood, chap, viii; Scott, 
Ed. Rev., Vol. XXI, pp. 153-162. 

On the development of the social consciousness and social training, read 
Monroe, N. E. A., 1898, pp. 921-928, or N. W. Mo., Vol. IX, pp. 31- 
36; Boone, Ed., Vol. XXII, pp. 395-401, Vol. XXIII, pp. 83-89, 270- 
276, 617-621 ; Wiggin, Children's Rights, pp. 109-138, 171-186. 

On pity and sympathy and other social feelings, see Hall and Saunders, Am. 
Jr. Psych., Vol. XI, pp. 534-591, and Ribot, Psychology of Emotions, 
pp. 230-234, Baldwin, Vol. II, pp. 220-246, Tracy, pp. 55-59. See 
also Hugh on " Animism of Children," N. W. Mo., Vol. IX, pp. 450- 
453, Vol. X, pp. 71-74; Hall and Smith, Ped. Sem., Vol. X, pp. 159- 
199 ; Jones, Psych. Rev. Supple., Vol. V, No. 5 ; Washburn, Am. Jr. 
Psych., Vol. XIV, pp. 77-78. 







Later References 








Books 






Betts 




Kirkpatrick (2, 4, 


&5) 


Puffer 


Brinton 




Krebs 




Scott, Colon 


Cooley 




March 




Sumner 


Dunn 




McDougall 




Swift 


George 




Montessori 




Thorndike 


King (2 


&3) 


O'Shea (2) 







THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOCIAL INSTINCT 159 

Articles 

Boland, Genevieve. Taking a Dare. Fed. Sem., 1910, Vol. 17, pp. 
510-524. 

Hartson, Louis D. The Fsychology of the Club, A Study in Social Fsy- 
chology. Fed. Sem., 191 1, Vol. 18, pp. 353-414. 

Kaylor, M. A. Feelings, Thought and Conduct of Children toward Ani- 
mal Fets. Fed. Sem., 1909, Vol. 16, pp. 205-239. 

Ordahl, Geo. Rivalry, Its Genetic Development and Fedagogy. Fed. 
Sem., 1908, Vol. 15, pp. 492-549. 

Terman, Lewis. A Freliminary Study in the Fsychology and Fedagogy 
of Leadership. Fed. Sem., 1904, Vol. 11, pp. 413-451. 



CHAPTER X 
DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — IMITATION 
CHARACTERISTICS OF IMITATION IN CHILDREN 

In general, we think of acts as imitative when they reproduce 
acts that have been observed by the performer. The psycho- 
logical basis of imitation is the general tendency for the percep- 
tion or image of an action to produce a similar action. Imitation 
is a form of suggestion in which the suggesting stimulus is re- 
produced. 

If a hungry child begins eating when he sees some one else 
eating, the act is not properly imitative, for the child knows what 
eating is, how to eat, and has a tendency to eat ; while the sight 
of some one else eating does nothing but suggest the idea, which 
would probably be aroused just as effectually by the sight of 
food or even by the utterance of the word ''dinner" or the sound 
of the dinner bell. If, however, a child tries to eat like some one 
else, the mode of eating is imitative because the idea of how to 
act is gotten from the observation of the act. If a child eats 
when not hungry, or eats something he does not like because he 
sees another eating, the act is clearly imitative, because the im- 
pulse to perform it results from observing its performance. 
When a child makes a new sound that he has heard, or tries to 
pack a trunk after seeing for the first time some one else do it, 
the act is imitative in a greater degree than in the preceding 
instance ; for the idea of the act, how to do it, and the impulse 
to perform it are all the result of observing its performance. 

Many of the child's acts are imitative in this sense, but it is 

i6o 



DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — IMITATION i6i 

doubtful whether this is true of many animals. Chickens, cats, 
rats, and dogs may run toward food or away from danger, or 
begin searching for food at sight of companions doing the same, 
or make noises in response to noises made by their kind, and 
such acts are often called imitative ; but the animals know how 
to do these things and have a tendency to do them, and per- 
ceiving them done by another merely suggests the idea without 
modifying its form or giving it much impulsive force. A few 
cases, however, of fairly definite acts of imitation are reported 
by some experimenters with monkeys and other mammals. 

Children, however, have a strong tendency to observe and per- 
form new acts ; hence, imitation is an important means of widen- 
ing their experience and fitting them for various activities and 
conditions. In most animals imitation does little more than 
specialize and develop tendencies already possessed in some 
degree, in ways that will favor survival; while in children it 
leads to an almost infinite variety of action and adaptation to 
varying conditions. As already mentioned, imitation is the mode 
of learning most used by children in getting acquainted with 
the world in which they live. 

CLASSIFICATION OF IMITATIVE ACTS OF CHILDREN 

(i) Reflex imitation is shown when a child is caused to do 
something which he has a physiological tendency to do, by per- 
ceiving the act performed by another. Yawning, crying, laugh- 
ing, and other emotional expressions, which may be reproduced 
by children in the first half year, are of this class. The stimulus 
to reflex imitation is largely sensory, 

(2) Spontaneous imitation is shown when acts not provided 
for by other instincts are reproduced without any purpose other 
than the all-sufhcient and unconscious one of an impulse to re- 
produce and to experience subjectively what has been observed 
objectively. The stimulus is usually a perception of some kind. 

M 



1 62 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

Everything, from the crowing of chickens to the whistle of a 
locomotive, from the wriggling of a snake to the preaching of a 
sermon, is imitated. Nothing in his environment, physical or 
social, escapes the child ; he absorbs and makes it all a part of 
himself by reproducing, and thus getting a subjective knowledge 
of it. For three or four years this form of the instinct is dominant. 

(3) Dramatic imitation is closely allied to the spontaneous, 
and differs from it chiefly in that the child now finds his own 
mode of reproducing or representing ideas. Images of previous 
perceptions are the usual stimuli. As in spontaneous imitation, 
there is no purpose outside of the act itself. Things heard or 
read, as well as those observed, are imitated ; but the reproduc- 
tions are not Hteral. Persons, animals, stones, and blocks are 
transformed in various ways by the imagination, and made to 
aid in the representations. Symbols and images thus take the 
place of real personalities and acts. 

(4) Voluntary imitation or imitation for a purpose appears 
when a child reproduces an act, not for its own sake, but to gain 
some end, as when a child imitates a word he has heard, not for 
the pleasure of the act, but in order to get what he wants, or tries 
to walk like some one else to make people laugh, or tries to handle 
a spoon or pencil as some one else does, in order that he may 
eat or write successfully. This form of imitation is concerned 
merely with how to imitate or represent when such an act is a 
means to an end. The impulse depends upon the end to be 
gained, and not upon the mere perception of the act. Voluntary 
imitation is always more or less analytic and synthetic, attention 
being directed to the parts of the process, and to the order of 
combination or synthesis. Memory images are the guides in 
voluntary imitation. When a child imitates spontaneously the 
act of writing, he simply takes the pencil and scratches around 
with it ; but when he voluntarily imitates the drawing of another, 
he watches his successive movements and tries to reproduce them. 



DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — IMITATION 163 

Voluntary imitation is a different act from spontaneous imi- 
tation, as was most strikingly illustrated in the case of a child 
who, before the close of the first year, reproduced with phono- 
graphic exactness every word she heard; but later, when she 
tried to use words voluntarily as a means of expressing thought, 
she went through the usual stages of mispronunciation. Not 
often is this so marked ; but every observer of children knows 
that children who spontaneously imitate the tones of those they 
hear speak and read, often find it difficult or impossible to do 
so voluntarily in response to a request. Every one can laugh 
or cry spontaneously, but few can do so voluntarily. 

(5) Idealistic imitation is that form of imitation in which there 
is an attempt to act according to a copy or standard conceived 
as correct and desirable. It leads to and is guided by concepts 
adopted as ideals. It is an attempt, not to reproduce or represent 
any one act or object, but to act in accordance with an ideal 
derived from numerous particulars. Such ideals, whether social, 
aesthetic, moral, or religious, are naturally formed and imitated, 
not from a study of their verbal expression in the form of general 
truths, but as shown in concrete acts and objects. 

DEVELOPMENT OF IMITATION 

The different varieties of imitation combine and overlap so 
that detailed and exact statements cannot be made ; but the 
general order of prominence is evidently that in which they have 
been named. 

(i) Reflex imitation is the only form of imitation until the 
second half of the first year. Later it is obscured, but remains 
all through life as an important form of suggestion. It is for 
this reason that good humor and bad humor, politeness and 
rudeness, carefulness and carelessness, are "catching." All 
persons, but especially children, are like mirrors reflecting back 
what they observe, responding to smiles with smiles, and to 



1 64 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

irritable words with similar words and actions. The personality 
and mood of each person is manifested in some degree in his 
face, voice, and actions, and the child reproduces reflexly to a 
greater or less extent every such manifestation, and is himself 
modified by it. If several children are together, each acts 
reflexly on the others. The teacher who comes into the room in 
the morning in an irritable mood soon infects some of her chil- 
dren, and these others. She is therefore confronted ere long by an 
irritable and irritating school ; while the teacher who has entered 
the room with cheerful good humor and kindly feeling is soon 
surrounded by a joyous group of children eager to follow her 
leading and respond pleasantly to her slightest suggestion. 

(2) Spontaneous imitation usually becomes very prominent 
the latter part of the first year. Although concerned with new 
acquisitions, reflex imitation is often combined with it, as when 
the tone in which a new word is uttered is reproduced as well 
as its pronunciation. In fact, the early imitations of words are 
often merely imitations of tones and inflections of voice rather 
than of specific sounds. This is probably due to the early de- 
velopment of reflex emotional expression. 

Sometimes the early spontaneous imitations are of single 
sounds and gestures, and sometimes of more complex acts. The 
author's little girl imitated acts at first, as poking the fire, 
packing a box, driving a nail, but never gestures, such as raising 
the hand, nodding the head. Neither did she imitate words 
as such, but only the act of speaking on occasion. Children 
do, however, frequently reproduce sounds like a phonograph, 
and gestures, like a shadow, sometimes without ceasing their 
play to do so. In no case is spontaneous imitation analytic 
and synthetic. It is always of wholes, large or small. 

The value of spontaneous imitation lies in the great amount 
of material accumulated in the form of knowledge and power of 
movement, which may be used or analyzed and combined, then 



DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — IMITATION 165 

used in future actions for a purpose. The knowledge thus ac- 
quired is of immense extent and of the most fundamental charac- 
ter, for it is subjective as well as objective. The child learns to 
know movements and sounds not only as they are seen and heard, 
but also as they are felt when performed or uttered, and he can 
not only recognize them, but also control them. Thus by 
spontaneous imitation he makes the world his own and obtains 
control of it. 

Although so various, spontaneous imitations are not the result 
of chance. Nothing is imitated that does not attract the at- 
tention. Attention is determined by the prominent instincts 
or experiences as they appear in the life of the developing child ; 
hence, the spontaneous imitations of each age are indications of 
the stage of development that has been reached. The investi- 
gations of Frear indicate that young children spontaneously 
imitate animals and children, while in the majority of cases 
older children voluntarily imitate older persons. 

At about three years of age contrary suggestion often appears, 
and, at more or less frequent intervals, controls the child's action. 
The child seems to be surfeited with taking into himself and re- 
producing from his surroundings. He therefore asserts his own 
individuality, which has heretofore been merged in whatever he 
imitated, and refuses to follow the copy set before him. He not 
only refuses to do what others do, and what it is suggested that 
he shall do, but as far as possible does just the opposite of what 
the imitative impulse would impel him to do. Usually these 
attacks are intermittent ; but if unsuccessful attempts are made 
to forcibly suppress them, they may become chronic, especially 
if the child is not in perfect health. If no notice is taken of such 
attacks of contrary suggestion or self-assertion, or if they are 
vigorously suppressed instead of combated just enough to de- 
velop them, they are likely to soon yield to the more fundamental 
impulse of positive suggestion or imitation. 



1 66 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

Spontaneous imitation develops not only by becoming more 
complete, and being concerned with more complex acts, but by 
appearing in response to mental images as well as to direct per- 
ceptions. Words, gestures, and processes observed yesterday are 
reproduced to-day as spontaneously and accurately as if just 
perceived. 

(3) When the above stage of spontaneous imitation is reached, 
dramatic imitation usually begins. Dramatic imitations are not 
clearly differentiated in the mind of the child, or easily distin- 
guished by the adult observer from spontaneous imitations. In 
purely spontaneous imitation the child reproduces literally, as 
well as he can, what he has observed, while in dramatic imitation 
he does not. Sometimes, however, he forgets that he is only 
making believe, and screams with terror at the attacks of a make- 
believe bear or weeps over the mishaps of the make-believe baby 
or kitty, or actually chews the make-believe bread, or is really 
worried by the idea that he is going to be left by the imaginary 
car, or cries with the pain of an imaginary burn or stomach 
ache. Usually, however, there seems to be a sort of under con- 
sciousness of the make-beheve character of it all, which, as long as 
it remains, heightens the pleasure of trying to make it seem real. 

Dramatic imitation greatly increases the possibiHties of varied 
development, for much of what the child observes or hears in- 
volves actions or objects unattainable to him. There is nothing, 
however, from the noises and movements of a locomotive to the 
silent art of Jack Frost, or from making a pie to constructing a 
church, from burglary to a fashionable tea party, that the child 
cannot imitate by the use of make-believe objects and symboHc 
movements. The essentials of every process and action in the 
heavens above and the earth beneath, of which the child sees or 
hears, are made famiHar to him in his dramatic imitations. He 
learns something of every custom of society, and every trade 
and profession, by the short-cut application of that most im- 



DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — IMITATION 167 

portant of all pedagogical laws, ''learning to do by doing," 
which is also the only sure way of learning to understand. 

What a change would result if this dramatic power and tend- 
ency to imitation could be more frequently, sensibly, and effec- 
tually utilized in the kindergarten and school. In its very 
nature, dramatic imitation is spontaneous and original; hence 
any attempt at systematic control of it must, in the nature of 
the case, almost inevitably prove artificial and ineffective. The 
wise teacher merely stirs the imagination, supplies the material 
for dramatic representation, and gives occasional suggestions as 
they are needed. For example, some sixth-grade children, who 
were taught geography in such a way that with very little help 
and suggestion they eagerly presented in character the different 
races, in costumes which they had made, gained more of real 
development than in a term of formal memorizing. 

Froebel did well to recognize the dramatic tendency in children ; 
but his followers have often done ill in using the particular 
processes and occupations given by him, at stated times, instead 
of those most common and interesting in the child's environment, 
presented at the most favorable times. 

The dramatic tendency usually begins in the third year and 
continues all through life, but is at its climax from about four to 
seven. During this time the child not only transforms objects, 
but persons, including himself, into whatever his fancy dictates 
or his dramatic play demands. He assumes the part of some 
other person, or of an animal, and perhaps for days at a time 
acts out the character to some extent, and insists upon being 
called by the name of the person or animal represented. So 
great is the tendency to represent by substitution, that even 
words are made to serve new purposes, as ''yes" to mean "no." 
Sometimes the child at once forgets the arrangement he has 
made ; then again he adheres to it for days or weeks, and insists 
that others do so. 



i68 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

This is the age also for the creation of imaginary companions, 
and a careful study of the matter shows that not only do a few 
lonely and highly imaginative children have these companions, 
but nearly all children have them in some form, for a greater or 
less period of time. It is only one step from representing persons 
by blocks to representing them in the mind without any tan- 
gible object. These imaginary companions frequently appear in 
the third year when the child is getting acquainted with his own 
variable personality, which is sometimes ''nice" and sometimes 
*' naughty," or in connection with early experiences with a play- 
mate who is not present all of the time, or after hearing of a 
little boy or girl of a certain character. Sometimes the imagi- 
nary companion is an ideal self, sometimes a naughty scapegrace, 
and at other times not self at all, but a distinct personaHty. 
The same child may have many such companions at once, or 
one at a time in succession. Where the phenomenon continues, 
as it sometimes does, into adult life, it often takes the form of a 
continued story, in which the imaginary characters figure, and 
perhaps grow older as their creator does. 

Curiously enough, during this make-believe age, the child is 
the most literal of beings as well as the most imaginative. Left 
to himself, he often has a wonderful perception of the essential 
truths symbolized; but when something is presented to him 
in symbolic form, and he has no experience corresponding to 
that symbolized, his ideas are surprisingly literal and material- 
istic. For this reason religious instruction often produces in the 
child's mind a gross caricature of holy things. For example, 
a boy did not want to be Jesus' ''little lamb," because he would 
then have to eat grass. Myths and fairy stories also often fail 
to teach the truth intended, because the truths symbolized are 
not apprehended by the child. 

(4) Voluntary imitation appears in the second or third year, 
but does not become prominent for several years. When a 



DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — IMITATION 169 

child, instead of freely repeating over and over the same sound 
in the same way, tries again and again to speak a word as another 
does, each time changing his pronunciation a little and getting 
nearer the correct form, we have an example of voluntary imita- 
tion, because it is performed, not for the pleasure of the act, 
but to secure the approval that follows its successful perform- 
ance, or the pleasure of being understood. Since, as we have 
defined it, voluntary imitation is for a purpose, it is concerned 
chiefly with the mode of performance. 

Whenever a child is trying to find out how to do an act, he is 
very ready to voluntarily imitate any mode of performing it 
that he sees. It is also much easier for a child to imitate the 
performance of an act than it is to form an idea from a descrip- 
tion of how it is to be done and then do it. Voluntary imita- 
tion is, therefore, one of the most important means of instruction, 
especially with young children. They can learn by watching 
how a thing is done, in a fourth the time required to learn it by 
being told how it should be done. This is true not only of 
manual, but also of purely intellectual processes. A child learns 
to add or to use good language by imitation better than by rule. 
Imitation might, therefore, very frequently be substituted for 
directions and rules. With younger children the imitation 
should be largely spontaneous, while with older ones it should 
be voluntary, and with still older children should be followed 
by analysis leading to specific directions or rules. Where the 
process is complex, some analysis is helpful in learning it ; but 
the analysis should be simply into parts or simpler wholes which 
the child can grasp, rather than into separate elements such as 
the scientist is able to detect. Most of the practice should 
also be upon the whole process rather than upon the elements. 

In using voluntary imitation educationally it is not best to 
merely give models for imitation. On the contrary, voluntary 
imitation should be simply a means of accomplishing successfully 



lyo FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

something which the child already has a desire to perform. 
The great defect in teaching has been too much analysis of pro- 
cesses into elements, and too wide a separation of processes from 
the ends they are fitted to secure, so that the natural motives for 
learning are destroyed. 

Unquestionably it is the function of the school in preparing 
the child for the work of life to develop the power of voluntary 
effort, and this means at first chiefly the power of voluntary 
imitation; but it does not follow that spontaneous imitation 
should not be utilized, or that the child should be required to 
voluntarily imitate what he has, as yet, no motive for learning 
to do. The child acquires the power and tendency to persistent 
effort by the act of persisting in what he attempts ; and if he can 
be held to a task by the desire to learn how, in order that he may 
do something which he wishes to do, the motive is a natural 
one and far more effective than those arising from artificial 
punishments or rewards. 

(5) Idealistic imitation, which is a sort of generalization from 
all other kinds, begins perhaps in the third or fourth year when 
a child has formed some idea of objects and acts that are " pretty " 
or ''nice." A little girl of four who admired a little girl in a 
story who always walked and talked quietly and nicely, imitated 
her and apparently thought of her as an ideal. In a similar 
way, a boy of three seemed to have a pretty good idea of ''Papa's 
Jolly Boy," and sometimes when not feeling well made con- 
siderable effort to smile and look pleasant under the inspiration 
of that ideal. Such idealistic imitation is, however, largely a 
matter of training till the teens are reached. 

Spontaneous imitation leads the child to imitate everything 
which attracts his notice, whether profanity or prayer, caresses 
or cruelty, rudeness or politeness. There is little or no selec- 
tion of the more admirable for imitation except as it is presented 
more often or made attractive by the approval, cooperation, or 



DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — IMITATION 171 

help of others. In the home, at school, and on the playground 
some selection of ideals, leading to their imitation, is brought 
about by the attitude and actions of parents, teachers, and 
companions; but for the most part children imitate certain 
ideals of conduct not so much because the ideal itself appeals 
to them, as because adherence to it secures the approbation of 
others, and ignoring it, their disapproval and perhaps punish- 
ment. These ideals are built up and strengthened by stories of 
persons performing admirable actions and receiving praise and 
reward, and of the opposite results from the performance of bad 
actions. The ideals admired and imitated by the child are not 
his own, but those of his people and his times. 

This remains true, in large measure, till the child reaches his 
teens, when he begins to find that within himself which responds 
with admiration or disgust, to certain deeds, acts, and objects. 
It is no longer merely his own interests or the opinion of others 
which arouse the feelings, but something within himself that 
reaches out toward or draws back from certain objects and acts, 
regardless of consequence. 

This is emphatically the age of ideals and of hero-worship. 
Now, if ever, the individual is stirred by ideals of the strong and 
true, the beautiful and the good. Spontaneous imitation, and 
past and present example and training, still have their influence 
upon the selection of ideals for imitation, but not, as formerly, 
entire control. In this stage of ferment and change from which 
is to emerge a more or less unified and permanent individuality, 
there is developed an inner principle of selection which results 
in the formation of ideals for imitation. There is not a mere 
selection, as formerly, of certain objects, persons, and acts for 
imitation, but a choosing from various sources, of qualities 
which appeal to the individual, and a combination of these into 
standards and rules of conduct. 

Often the youth forms ideals without at once imitating them. 



172 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

He feels their worth, but has not the force of will to realize them 
in his acts. Usually, after a period of variable action, the ideals 
or the habits are modified so as to bring them more nearly into 
harmony, and the character of the developing man is pretty 
firmly established at a higher or lower level, according to the 
kind of ideals formed and imitated. Sometimes, however, the 
gulf between approved ideals and practice results in a permanent 
division of personality, in which one phase of it, then the other, 
dominates, as in ''Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." This condition 
is much more likely to result when children have either been led 
to form high ideals without being induced to imitate them, or 
when they have been compelled to act according to certain 
standards which they have not been led to approve. If the child 
has learned to both admire and imitate his ideals, and if these 
ideals are merely deepened and broadened but not fundamen- 
tally changed during the transition period, then there is no 
break in the development ; but the new element which comes 
into the youth's life merely perfects and completes what was 
begun before the age of transition. 

Exercises for Students 

1. Describe instances of imitation and indicate in each case how far 
perception of what is imitated gives any or all of these : (i) the idea of the 
act ; (2) knowledge of how to do it ; (3) the impulse to perform it. 

2. Give examples of imitation in animals and compare with imitations 
of children, showing the difference. 

3. Show how imitations by children lead to many adaptations, or, in 
other words, to the gaining of much valuable knowledge and experience. 

4. Give original illustrations of each class of imitations. 

5. State the order and the ages at which the different kinds of imitation 
become prominent. 

6. Show the importance of reflex imitation in school. Is there any rea- 
son for objecting to the presence of stammering or nervous children in 
school? Can a noisy, unsystematic teacher teach children to be quiet and 
orderly? Why? 



DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — IMITATION 173 

7. Show how spontaneous imitation prepares for the doing of useful acts 
in the future. 

8. Give illustrations of contrariness as opposed to imitativeness in 
children. 

9. Give examples of dramatic imitation in which you engaged as a child 
or have observed in other children. 

I o. Give examples of the ways in which dramatic imitation may be utilized 
in school. 

11. Describe imaginary companions that you have had or which you 
know of other children having. 

12. Give illustrations of symbolism which children have or have not 
appreciated. 

13. Show how voluntary imitation may best be used in gymnastics, 
drawing, writing, word building, etc., indicating parts that need special 
practice, and the motives to imitate, which may be appealed to. Should a 
teacher seek to secure good vocal expression in reading by much use of 
voluntary imitation, or should she depend on spontaneous imitation and 
natural emotional expression? Why? 

14. Describe your idealistic imitations at different ages. 

15. Show why ideals are especially important during the adolescent period, 
and indicate a variety of means which may help in the formation of high 
ideals. 

Suggestions for Reading 

On imitation in animals, see Thorndike, Animal Intelligence, pp. 47-64; 
Monograph Suppl. to Psych. Rev., Vol. II, No. 4 ; Mill, Animal Intelli- 
gence, pp. 163-164; Small, Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. XI, pp. 160-164; 
Kinnaman, Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. XIII, pp. 196-200. 

On the nature and significance of imitation, see Baldwin, Century, Vol. 
XLIX, pp. 160-164 ; Mental Development, Vol. I, pp. 263-278 ; Royce, 
Century, Vol. XL VIII, pp. 137-145 ; Psych. Rev., Vol. II, pp. 217-235 ; 
Ellwood, Am. Jr. Sociology, Vol. VI, pp. 721-741. 

On suggestion and early imitations, see Baldwin, Vol. I, pp. 104-134; 
Preyer, Senses and Will, chap, xii ; Tracy, pp. 102-103 ; Compayre, 
Vol. II, pp. 1-17. 

For descriptions and discussions of what children imitate, see Haskell, 
Ped. Sem., Vol. Ill, pp. 30-47, or Frear, Ped. Sem., Vol. IV, pp. 382- 
386; Sudborough, N. W. Mo., Vol. VII, pp. 99, 136, 162, 226, 300, 
352 ; Waldo, Ch. S. Mo., Vol. II, pp. 75-87. 



174 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

On choice and imitation of ideals, see Barnes, Vol. I, pp. 243-253, Vol. II, 

pp. 243-270 ; Chambers, Fed. Sent., Vol. X, pp. 101-143, and references 

given by the latter. 
On imaginary companions, see Barnes, Studies in Ed., Vol. I, pp. 98-101 ; 

Learoyd, Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. VII, pp. 86-90. 
On imitation in relation to education, Deahl, Columbia Univ. Contrih. 

to Philos., 1900, p. 103 ; Van Liew, N. W. Mo., Vol. VIII, pp. 

320-327; Ledyard, N. E. A., 1899, pp. 547-551; Harris, N. E. A., 

1894, pp. 637-641. 

Later References 

Books 

Bolton Major 

Deahl Sandiford 

Drummond Tanner 

Gesell Thorndike (8) 

Kirkpatrick (i & 3) Tracy 

Articles 

Craig, Anne T. The Development of a Dramatic Element in Education. 

Ped. Sem., 1908, Vol. 15, pp. 75-81. 
Gilbertson, Albert N. A Swedish Study in Children's Ideals. Ped. Sem., 

1913, Vol. 20, pp. 100-106. 
Goddard, H. H. Ideals of a Group of German Children. Ped. Sem., 

1906, Vol. 13, pp. 208-220. 
Herts, AHce M. Dramatic Instinct, Its Use and Misuse. Ped. Sem., 1908, 

Vol. 1 5, pp. 550-562. 
Hill, D. S. Comparative Study of Children's Ideals. Ped. Sem., 191 1, 

Vol. 18, pp. 219-231. 
Simons, Sarah E. Imitative Writing in the High School. Ped. Sem., 

1910, Vol. 17, pp. 451-479. 
Swett, Harry P. Her Little Girl. Ped. Sem., 1910, Vol. 17, pp. 104-110. 



CHAPTER XI 
DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — PLAY 
THEORY OF PLAY 

The older theory set forth by Spencer considers play to be 
the activity by which surplus energy is used. If we conceive of 
surplus energy as meaning superabundance of energy, the theory 
is not true to the facts, for children must be very sick or tired 
before the play impulse disappears. If, however, the word 
''surplus" is taken to mean, in a general way, the energy which 
is most easily set free, then play may properly be looked upon 
as the activity by which such energy is most likely to be utilized. 
Excess of energy is thus a condition favorable to play activity 
rather than an essential cause of it. 

The more recent discussions of play, especially those of Groos, 
have emphasized its instinctive character. It is shown that 
young animals of all kinds have the play impulse, and that the 
form of the play is related to the instincts of the animal. In 
general, the animal uses the same powers that his ancestors have 
used in gaining food, avoiding enemies, and securing the per- 
petuation of the species, and thus exercises the powers he will 
himself need to use when no longer protected by parental care. 
Each instinct as it appears is thus developed and perfected by 
playful activity before it needs to be used seriously. 

These two theories need to be combined. In play there must 
always be some energy which is surplus in the sense that it may 
be used in other ways than to obtain necessary ends. The 
activities most readily initiated are of parts which have most 

175 



176 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

available energy, either because they are growing and developing 
or are less fatigued than other parts. The way in which the 
active parts are used, depends upon the openness of certain 
*' paths" connecting them, which is determined largely by the 
instincts that are coming into prominence at the time. The 
plays of young animals are therefore greatly influenced by the 
order in which their powers and instincts develop, and, in turn, 
play directly promotes the development of powers that will 
be needed in adult life. 

In the case of adults, play is influenced by fatigue, and is a 
means of developing powers not used in daily work; hence it 
aids all-round development, and furnishes a means of recreation. 
Play and necessity are the chief stimuli to learning. In children, 
who are largely shielded from necessity, play in its various forms 
is the more important factor in development. 

WORK, PLAY, AND AMUSEMENT 

Objectively, work and play cannot easily be distinguished, 
although the results of playful activity are usually of little lasting 
importance, while work usually has results more or less valuable 
and permanent. 

Subjectively, an act is playful when it is not only enjoyable, 
but is directed chiefly to the securing of pleasure, while it is of the 
work type when an end is being striven for and the activity is 
being guided by that end. Play is comparatively free since it 
is directed by pleasure, while in work there is some necessity for 
doing, and to secure the end there must be activity of the right 
kind at the right time, and in the right way, more or less regard- 
less of desire. 

Physiologically, work often requires the use of the same parts 
of body or brain in the same way, for a considerable time ; while 
play, continuing one kind of activity only as long as is agreeable, 
exercises many parts of the body in a variety of ways, and usually 



DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — PLAY 177 

no one part for very long, without change. In work, the least 
available energy is often used, and the activity is always directed ; 
while in play, parts having the most utilizable energy are freely 
active. For this reason work is much harder and more wearisome 
even when the amount of activity is less. 

Often an act involves the chief elements of both work and 
play, and it is impossible to classify it with assurance under either 
head. A boy building a dam is said to be playing, while a man 
constructing a larger one for permanent use is said to be working. 
The boy is not compelled to engage in that activity at all, or 
at a certain time, or to continue the construction longer than 
pleases him. Yet if he becomes completely engrossed, he may 
feel that he must finish it in the way he has planned, before 
stopping. The man is to some extent forced by some need of 
his own or of the community, to begin and carry on his work ; 
yet if he becomes thoroughly interested, his enjoyment may be 
as keen as that of the boy and he may do much more in the way 
of perfecting the job than necessity demands. Thus the best 
work has in it the essential elements of play, and the most en- 
joyable play involves as much directive effort as work. 

Play is one of the most effective means of learning to work. 
Obstacles are met in most plays, and the child must do many 
things that in themselves are disagreeable, in order that he may 
carry out his plans. The act, as a whole, is play, though parts of 
it are work. The more complex a child's play becomes, the more 
work is there connected with it. Materials must be collected 
before a tea party can be held ; bait must be dug and a long 
tramp taken before fishing is possible; bases must be marked 
out before the ball game begins, and forts must be built before 
the snowball battle opens. The boys who cleared a field of 
stones in dramatic play, by representing the stones as water, 
and the pile where they were dumped as fire, were playing, 
though doing with much more than their usual working vigor 



178 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

what would have been very hard and tiresome without the play- 
ful exercise of the dramatic instinct to lighten it and make it 
enjoyable. 

Nearly every adult must of necessity work, yet his work may 
be to him a most enjoyable play if it is well chosen and carried 
on in the proper spirit. If it is so well suited to his powers, and 
he takes such a pride and pleasure in it that he would continue 
to perform it if relieved of the necessity of thus making a living, 
then he is really pla3dng while he works. This is perhaps more 
often the case with artists, authors, and inventors, but it may be 
equally true of a farmer, business man, mechanic, motorman, 
or teacher. 

Games are intermediate between free play and work because 
they involve more or less direction of activity according to rule, 
and more or less repetition of the same acts ; yet they are freely 
chosen and usually are played for their own sake, and not for 
results to be gained. Professional players, who are after the 
rewards rather than the pleasures of the game, are not playing, 
but working. This is also true to a considerable extent of college 
athletes who desire honors and sacrifice pleasure to win. 

Amusement is a mild and passive form of play, a name of which 
it is scarcely worthy because it involves so little activity on the 
part of the one being amused. Some one else does the work 
(though perhaps in the form of play), wh'le the seeker after 
pleasure enjoys it if he can. Here, as in other cases, there is 
little to be gained without earning it One who has been working 
hard may get a great deal of enjoyment and rest from amuse- 
ments ; but one who devotes his life to amusements, ceases to 
enjoy them. To amuse, a thing must be novel or exciting or 
appeal to phases of one's nature not affected by one's occupation. 
To hard-working people, with little surplus energy, amusements 
are a valuable means of rest and sometimes a source of general 
culture. To those whose available energy is used in their daily 



DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — PLAY 179 

tasks, amusements are almost indispensable, and play scarcely 
necessary ; while for all others active play is essential, and mere 
amusement of secondary importance. Children, in general, 
need play rather than amusement. 

In these days of urban Hfe and specialization, in which few of 
a man's powers are used in his occupation, play and amusement 
are of far more importance than formerly. The man who does 
not play in some way soon degenerates, because so few of his 
powers are used. 

CHANGES WITH AGE AS REGAEJDS FI^EEDOM IN PLAY 

The first plays of children are wholly free, i.e., follow no 
rules. Attempts to direct a child's activity by showing him 
how to pound or build are often resented in the first year or two. 
During the next three or four years, customs which serve the 
purpose of rules of the play may be established through imita- 
tion; but any attempt to dictate when, what, or how a child 
shall play is met with opposition. Suggestions must also be 
given with care. 

Upon entering school the child is ready for games with very 
simple rules, but quickly loses his interest in a game having 
many rules, because too much voluntary effort is required to 
play it. For example, drop the handkerchief is enjoyed very 
much when there is no rule except to pick up the handkerchief 
and chase the dropper, then leave it behind some one else ; but 
if the more complex form is tried, in which the one behind whom 
it is dropped must discover it for himself, or go inside the ring, 
or must run in a certain direction while the dropper, if caught, 
goes inside the ring, and those inside get out by being the first 
to seize the handkerchief when dropped behind some one in 
the circle, very young children find it puzzling and irksome, 
though older children, familiar with the game, enjoy it more 
than the simpler form. 



i8o FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

During the first five years the child's activities are free and 
imaginative and are almost wholly of the kind called play; 
while in the period from five to ten, games become more and 
more prominent, and after twelve, plays other than dramatic 
have almost wholly given place to games and sports. 

Play must always be free in the sense of being engaged in be- 
cause the individual wants to perform the acts for their own sake 
and their immediate results, such as satisfying the instinctive de- 
sire to win in a contest. If a person is forced to play, or paid 
for playing, the act is at once transformed into work. Tennis 
played only for the benefit of the exercise is not play, but work. 

Play becomes less free with age, in the sense that activity 
is directed in definite lines by the requirements of the rules of 
the game. This conformity to law does not decrease the free- 
dom of the individuals engaging in the more complex group 
games, but rather increases it by restricting the action of each 
individual as to kind, time, and place, so that one may not inter- 
fere with another. Children enjoy playing with an older person 
who leads according to rules, and they thus learn to appreciate 
the value of rules, so that they become indignant with the com- 
panion who interferes with the game, and consequently with the 
freedom of each player, by refusing to conform to rules or by 
trying to cheat. 

The great lesson of law as a means of freedom is nowhere so 
well taught as in well-directed and orderly play. In no other 
place can a child so fully realize for himself the value of law as 
on the playground. A teacher who can successfully lead children 
to play happily in accordance with whatever rules are necessary, 
is not only forming public sentiment in favor of orderly and fair 
play, but she is also preparing the children for good citizenship 
more effectually than she can possibly do in the schoolroom, 
unless the children are led to have as keen a personal interest 
in what is being done there. 



DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — PLAY i8i 
CHANGES WITH AGE AS REGARDS POWERS USED IN PLAY 

Children begin playing in the second quarter of the first year, 
and long before the close of that year have engaged in a great 
variety of plays. Almost every sensation and movement which 
comes under their control is repeated again and again as play. 
Objects are scratched, rubbed, pounded, rolled, and tossed 
about almost continually. If in doing so the eye and ear are 
variously stimulated, the pleasure is all the greater. Not only 
objects, but parts of the child's own body, are used as instruments 
of play. This is perhaps most marked in the case of the mouth 
and vocal organs, which during the first year or two are endless 
sources of amusement. The powers most exercised in this 
early play are evidently those of the sense organs and the muscles. 
There is no attempt to use them accurately or in any definite 
way, but merely to use them freely over and over, yet with 
infinite variations. In shaking brightly colored balls or a rattle, 
it is hard to tell which is the greater source of pleasure, — the 
varied and repeated muscular sensations, or the changing and 
recurrent visual and auditory sensations; but either alone is 
sufficient to call forth the play instinct, for the sight of waving 
ribbons or dancing sunbeams is a visual play, as sounds and 
jingles are auditory play, and movements of limbs, muscular 
play. 

For two or three years the child's play is almost wholly 
sensory, motor, and perceptional. Great progress is made, how- 
ever, during this time, for the movements become much more 
complex, so that all parts of the body are used at once, and they 
are not merely used but exercised in doing specific things in- 
volving some accuracy, as in preserving the balance when jump- 
ing or throwing something, or in hitting objects or piling them 
up so they will stay. 

In the sensory and motor plays of children the mental powers 



i82 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

are also used so that there is perception of Hkeness or difference 
and of space, as the child pounds objects and puts one inside of 
or on top of another and arranges (or scatters) them to his satis- 
faction. 

In the third year the representative powers are developed 
sufficiently to be used extensively in play. The child begins 
to find amusement in reproducing or representing acts and 
events that have been observed on previous occasions. He 
delights in reproducing phrases, rhymes and actions, and in 
representing events, as a visit to a neighbor or a ride. Soon 
nearly all of his play is transferred to the field of imagination, 
where his freedom is complete ; and no object is so remote, rare, 
or costly that he cannot have it in the form of a representation, 
and no process so difficult that it is not readily performed (in 
his mind) by the manipulation of a few simple objects. Feasts 
and fetes are provided on short notice, and without the hitches 
that so often trouble adult dispensers of hospitahty. 

Imagination as a director of playful movements usually ap- 
proaches its climax in the fifth and sixth years. After this, 
imaginative play may be occupied for several years with enjoy- 
ing and creating fanciful stories often associated with dramatic 
action. Fairy stories are interesting largely because they give 
playful exercise to the imagination. Later, the less free activity 
of representing historical and geographical facts may be engaged 
in. 

As the child grows older, mere exercise of physical powers 
becomes a less important element, though any new movement, as 
standing on the head, turning somersaults, skinning the cat, 
walking on the hands, etc., always appeals to the ever develop- 
ing instinct of play. After five or six years, familiar movements 
are made in play, not merely to use the power, but to use it in 
some definite way, involving quickness, strength, endurance, or 
accuracy. From six or seven years to puberty, testing exercises 



DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — PLAY 183 

of physical powers are important elements in the plays and games 
of children, especially of boys. During the latter part of this 
period there is not only desire to do what companions can or 
what they cannot do, but to reach certain standards, to "make 
records." 

From six to twelve the perceptive and representative powers 
are not merely used, but tested along with the physical. Thought 
power has been used to some extent before this time in connec- 
tion with the imagination, in judging and reasoning as to the 
proper and logical mode of representing persons and events {e.g. 
the larger stick must be papa and he must sit at the head of the 
table or must drive the horse, or the yellow block must be the 
car and the black one the engine and the latter must be in front) . 
Later, imaginary incidents and scenes must conform to the laws 
of probability. Thought power as a distinct element in the 
pleasure of play is not, however, very prominent till about 
seven or eight, when guessing games and riddles begin to have 
a great fascination. A little later, games that chiefly exercise 
thought power, such as flinch, checkers, cards, authors, come 
into favor, and finally perhaps the most intellectual of all games, 
chess. To some children the thought activity involved in such 
subjects as mathematics may be as enjoyable as play. 

In general, we may say that every power, physical and mental, 
as it appears, is playfully exercised, and thus its development 
is hastened, and after each power is developed to some extent, 
it is tested and perfected in contests and games. 

CHANGES WITH AGE AS REGARDS INSTINCTS INVOLVED IN PLAY 

The early stages of almost all instincts are manifested in play, 
and after they are used for the serious purposes of life they are 
still important factors in more or less playful activities outside 
of one's vocation. 

Perhaps the earliest instinct to be shown in play is that form 



i84 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

of curiosity which delights in changes. For this reason, peek- 
a-boo and other sudden transformations are enjoyed, when re- 
peated over and over again. A certain interval of preparation 
before making a final movement which effects the change, seems 
to add to the pleasure. This indicates that the rhythmic tend- 
ency is, from the first, an important element in children's 
play. The early enjoyment of recurrent sensations, movements, 
and jingles is further evidence of the early prominence of this 
instinct. 

The movements of emotional expression in attitude and voice 
are often made playfully in the third year, though the expressive 
instinct has a serious use for them from the first. 

The feeling of personal power in effecting changes is an im- 
portant element in play, as soon as the child gains control of his 
hands. 

As soon as a child attains any form of locomotion, whether 
rolling, creeping, or walking, he dehghts in being chased. This, 
one of the most universally useful of all instincts, is prominent 
in play at all ages and is the chief element in nearly all the more 
popular games, at least before puberty. 

Imitative acts, when repeated over and over without purpose, 
may be considered as playful; hence imitative and dramatic 
plays are very popular from three to seven, and dramatic play 
continues in favor much later. 

It is hard to say just when the fighting and competitive in- 
stinct is first manifested, either seriously or playfully ; but com- 
petition is the most prominent element in the play of children 
from seven to twelve. It continues to be a prominent feature in 
games all through life, but is often subordinated to the group or 
social instinct which develops at puberty. Such games as base- 
ball and football, which involve cooperation and subordination 
of individual prowess and honor for the sake of the greater 
prowess and honor of the group (which represents the youth's 



DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — PLAY 185 

larger self), are then most favored. This cooperative or tribal 
tendency is also manifested in connection with predatory in- 
stincts at the beginning of puberty, in the formation of gangs 
for such purposes as hunting, fishing, robbing, teasing police- 
men, or fighting boys of another neighborhood. Other instincts 
taking the form of play or involved in play are the constructive, 
collecting, and aesthetic instincts, all of which begin early and 
continue all through life, varying with age as to the form they 
take. 

PLAY AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

Necessity is not only the "mother of invention," but also of 
a great deal of knowledge of all kinds. Animals, nations, and 
individuals must learn something of their environment, such as 
how best to secure food, escape danger, and preserve their species. 
This is true of adults, but not in so great a degree of young 
animals and children, for they are, to a considerable extent, 
screened from the necessities of life by parental care and pro- 
tection. Without this protection, necessity would be to the 
young, in their weakness and ignorance, an executioner rather 
than a teacher. 

How shall these helpless and ignorant young ones become 
strong and wise? Partly through physical development as 
determined by inner laws governing the growth of the species, 
and partly through occasional touches of necessity in spite of 
the screen of parental care, but chiefly through Nature's jolly 
old nurse. Play, who charms animals and children into using 
every power as it develops, and into finding out everything 
possible about their environment from the heavens above to the 
earth beneath. 

Practically all education among animals and savages is carried 
on by ''Mother Necessity" and ''Nurse Play," but among 
civilized people there is a third teacher which we may designate 
as "Stepmother Authority." All civilized people select certain 



1 86 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

truths and activities which they regard as valuable, and induce 
the children, by various more or less artificial means, to learn 
them and thus prepare for the life they are to live as adults. 
Such education, if consistent and wise, may be very valuable, 
but it is artificial. It often does not make use of natural im- 
pulses, and is therefore very wasteful of the energy of both 
teachers and pupils. If the natural educators, necessity and 
play, were properly utilized, it would be like travelling with the 
wind and tide instead of by wearisome rowing in dead calms or 
against adverse winds. 

Since the conditions of life are now quite different from what 
they were in a savage state, we need a special preparation for 
life as it has to be lived now. Activities which would in a proper 
degree develop all the powers possessed by our ancestors would 
not give the best preparation for the life of to-day. It is neces- 
sary, therefore, that truths and activities suited to modern life 
shall be selected, to the end that children may be properly 
educated. If the child comes in contact with this artificial 
environment, necessity and playful imitation will induce him to 
choose many, perhaps most, of the truths and activities which 
will be of greatest value to him in life. Yet it is still necessary 
for authority to do something in the way of selecting and arrang- 
ing educative truths and activities for the young. 

The teacher, in presenting this educative material to the chil- 
dren, may act as a servant of authority and simply require, by 
rewards and punishments, that children shall take it, or she may 
try to present it in such a way that the greater portion of the 
time the child recognizes no other teachers than stern "Mother 
Necessity'* and joyous "Play." If she succeeds in the latter 
method, play is the chief factor in education during the early 
years ; but gradually more and more place is given to Necessity, 
until she is the honored director of activity in manhood, or per- 
chance both give place to the twin sisters, Doing and Achieve- 



DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — PLAY 187 

ment, who smile alike on work that is as joyous as play and 
play that is as valuable as work. 

In school, where what is to be done and learned is determined 
by the course of study, there are yet so many ways of doing and 
learning that it is often possible for the teacher to arrange exer- 
cises so that the dominant powers and instincts of the children 
at each age shall be called into activity in a playful way. Curi- 
osity supplies all the interest necessary in learning new things ; 
but something else is required in drilHng on what has been 
learned, to produce accuracy, speed, permanency, and facility 
in using. It is in this part of school work that the play impulse 
may be utilized to the best advantage. With a Httle ingenuity 
every such exercise may be so conducted that it will really be 
play. It will also be work, in that the child will be induced to 
perform again and again the same act, but without weariness, 
because the act is variously associated, and always agreeably, 
in new combinations with powers and instincts that are being 
playfully exercised. All school exercises in which repetition to 
secure skill and accuracy is necessary, including word drill, 
numbers requiring rapidity in fundamental operations, factor- 
ing, etc., and fixing facts of geography, history, and grammar, 
may be conducted as games rather than as formal drills. 

In conducting such exercises the teacher may or may not call 
them games, and she must not make them too easy. Most 
games owe their charm to their difficulty, and nothing is more 
tiresome and destructive of real interest and ambition in children 
than doing easy things only. On the other hand, there is nothing 
so stimulating and inspiring to children as to be allowed to do 
things that are supposed to be difficult. The more difficult an 
exercise can be made to appear to children the better, providing 
they are not deterred from trying, and that it is not really so 
difficult that they cannot succeed. 
, The other essential to the success of such exercises is that there 



i88 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

shall be frequent changes to give variety. Except for very 
young children, these changes may consist largely of slight 
modifications in the exercise which make it more difficult in 
one way, then in another, as they acquire facility in successive 
phases of activity. By such changes interest is maintained 
through variety and by the constant re-adaptation of the exercise 
to the growing powers of the child. Adaptations to new powers 
and instincts are also desirable as the child develops. 

In planning educational games for younger children, the 
muscular, perceptive, and imaginative powers must be called 
into action and tested. When children are a little older, 
reasoning ability may be exercised and imagination and 
memory tested. As children grow older, the tests may be made 
more difficult and complex, resulting finally in tests of various 
powers combined, including thought power. The rhythmic, im- 
itative, and dramatic instincts may be chiefly appealed to in 
the younger children, then from seven to twelve the competitive 
instincts, and from ten years on, the cooperative, group, or class 
spirit. The chief points to be recognized are that the drill be 
neither too difficult nor too easy, that there be some element in 
it that appeals to the children, and that variety be introduced 
in order that there may be no fatigue or loss of interest. 

In utilizing the play impulses care must be exercised that the 
child learns to enjoy and appreciate work and to engage in it 
when necessary whether he enjoys it or not. If he feels keenly 
the necessity, usefulness, or beauty of a task and believes that he 
can perform it, he will enjoy doing it, although parts of it may be 
unpleasant. The play impulse may lead one to desire to achieve, 
and along with it should be cultivated an appreciation for things 
that are worthy of achievement. This will combine in the most 
happy way the play and the work impulses. 



DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — PLAY 189 

Exercises for Students 

1. Mention some plays of animals and children that you think develop 
their instincts and prepare them for adult life. 

2. Describe the recreations of some adults you know, and explain on the 
theory of play. Why do brain workers engage in manual labor and city 
people go to the country for recreation? 

3. Why is a mason piling up brick, working, and a child piling up blocks, 
playing ? 

4. Is one who engages in billiards or bowling to secure a prize of value, 
working or playing ? Why ? 

5. Is drawing or singing work or play for you? Why? Is any of your 
work really play to you ? 

6. Mention games and sports that are especially valuable in preparing 
for work, giving reasons. 

7. Yoder, in his study of the boyhood of great men, found that most of 
them were noted players when boys. How do you interpret this? 

8. Mention several amusements as distinguished from play, and indicate 
their value, if any. 

9. Is there danger in these days of moving pictures and pleasure parks 
that children shall play and work too little and be amused too much? 
What should be done ? 

10. Does the statement, " A teacher should interest her pupils," mean she 
should amuse them, or what does it mean ? 

1 1 . What plays and games did you most enjoy at different ages ? What 
games are most popular among children you have observed at different 
ages? Determine as weU as you can what characteristics of various games 
make them popular, taking into account the freedom of the game, the powers 
used, and the instincts involved. 

12. Mention things some animals you know of learned by necessity. 
Mention things you and other individuals learned because it was necessary, 
Mention differences in knowledge possessed by the people of different regions, 
produced by conditions under which their Hfe must be maintained. 

13. Which has been the larger factor, necessity or the play impulse, in 
developing practical knowledge ? The sciences ? The arts ? 

14. What connection is there between the statements that we should 
utilize the play impulse of children and that we should appeal to their 
interests ? 

15. Mention indoor gymnastic plays that are good for recreation and 



IQO FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

physical development. When the teacher directs each movement, are 
gymnastics a rest or another form of work? 

1 6. Describe games that may be used in numbers, arithmetic, geography, 
and history in certain grades, and indicate changes that may be made as the 
children progress. 

17. Discuss possible disadvantages of having children learn by playing 
instead of because they must do tasks. 

Suggestions for Reading 

On the general theory and value of play, read Spencer, Psychology y Vol. I, 
sec. 50, and Vol. II, chap, ix ; Groos, Play of Animals, especially pp. 
1-81, and the preface by Baldwin; Stanley, Psych. Rev., Vol. VI, pp. 
86-92 ; Allen, Invest, of Ch. Dept. of Psych, and Ed., Univ. of Colo. 
Studies, Vol. I, pp. 59-72 ; Carr, Univ. of Colo. Studies, Vol. I, No. 2, 
pp. 1-47 ; Blow, Symbolic Education, chap, v ; Chamberlain, The 
Child, chap, ii, and on kinds of play, Groos, Play of Man. 

On development of the play instinct, besides records of the play of infants in 
Preyer, Moore, Shinn, Tracy, and of young animals in Mills and Groos, 
see Monroe, N. E. A., 1899, pp. 1084-1090; Crosswell, PeJ. Sem., 
Vol. VI, pp. 314-371 ; Gulick, Ped. Sem.,Vo\. VI, pp. 135-151 ; Burk, 
N. W. Mo., Vol. IX, pp. 349-355 ; HaU and AUen, Ped. Sem., Vol. IV, 
pp. 129-175; Hall, Scribner's Mag., Vol. Ill, pp. 689-696; Barnes, 
Studies in Ed., Vol. I, pp. 1 71-174. 

On the use of play in education, Johnson, Ped. Sem., Vol. Ill, pp. 97-133, 
Vol. VI, pp. 513-522 ; Felker, iV. E. A., 1898, pp. 624-630; Powe and 
others in N. E. A., 1901, pp. 502-532 ; Harrison, Child Nature, chap. iii. 

For descriptions of games to be played, see Lucas, What Shall We Do Now? 
Newell, Games and Songs of American Children; Chesley, Indoor and 
Outdoor Gymnastic Games. 

Later References 

Books 

Bancroft Kirkpatrick (3 & 4) 

Bradley Lee 

Curtis Parsons 

GeseU Patrick 

HaU, G. S. (2) Stoner 

Johnston, G. E. Tanner 



DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — PLAY 191 

Articles 

Hall, G. S. Recreation and Reversion. Ped. Sem., Vol. 22, 191 5, pp. 

510-520. 
Reaney, M. J. The Correlation between General Intelligence and Play 

Ability as Shown in Organized Group Games. Brit. Jr. of Psychol., 

1914, Vol. 7, pp. 226-252. 
Smith, P. A. Some Phases of the Play of Japanese Boys and Men. Ped. 

Sem., 1909, Vol. 16, pp. 256-267. 



CHAPTER XII 

DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — CURIOSITY 
FUNCTION OF CURIOSITY 

From the moment that the sunbeams dancing on the wall, 
or the Httle hands waving before the eyes, hold the infant's gaze, 
till the time when the latest discoveries in science are eagerly 
examined by the savant, curiosity in some form is daily and 
hourly a factor in human action and thought. 

Curiosity is even more omnivorous than imitation. It is at 
first almost entirely unselective, except as stronger stimuH force 
themselves upon the attention. It may be described as an 
appetite for new experiences. In infancy everything is new ; 
hence, everything is interesting. Curiosity is early manifested 
in a tendency to prolong a sensation, as by gazing at a new object ; 
or to reproduce it, as when a sound is made again ; or to act so 
as to get one or more additional sensations, as when an object 
seen is felt of ; or to find the relation of one sensation to others, 
as when a child discovers that touching an object being struck, 
deadens the sound. Later, similar things are true of ideas. 

By means of curiosity a child is brought into intimate relation 
with various phases of his environment instead of simply those 
that minister to his existence. Everything around him is made 
a part of himself. The trees, the hills, the birds, the people of 
his home surroundings are compared and related to what he 
finds in new surroundings. 

The greater the knowledge of environment gained through 
curiosity, the greater the possibiUty of adaptation to environ- 

192 



DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — CURIOSITY 193 

ment, as occasions arise involving applications of knowledge 
which has hitherto been useless. Thus a child who has learned 
a word through mere curiosity may be able to use it as a means 
of getting what he wants, or one who has learned through mere 
curiosity that wood floats, wasps sting, plants grow, fire burns, 
etc., may on occasion use the knowledge in a practical way. 
Other instincts tend to produce the proper response to present 
stimuli, while curiosity is continually preparing for the right 
response to conditions that may be met in the future. It lays 
up great stores of knowledge which serve as a basis for useful 
reactions. If man never learned anything before he had occasion 
to use it, he would suffer in countless ways from improper and 
delayed action. Necessity is a great teacher, but curiosity is 
a greater teacher in early life, because even in early infancy it 
gives lessons which prepare for life. It does not inflict immediate 
and severe punishment as does necessity, but it gives present 
joy and prepares for great rewards in the future. 

The race as well as the individual has learned by means of 
curiosity. In its highest form curiosity has led to many scientific 
discoveries of no immediate practical value. Sooner or later, 
however, these abstract scientific truths nearly always find 
valuable practical applications. 

CURIOSITY, ATTENTION, AND INTEREST 

Curiosity, as an instinct or impulse, produces in consciousness 
a concentration of activity called attention, and a feeling ac- 
companying the act, called interest. Studying attention and 
interest is therefore the chief means of studying curiosity, since 
they are largely the result of curiosity, though other instincts 
and much experience may also be involved. The simple mental 
state of attention to the act of eating, or of drawing back from 
a dangerous object, is the result of the feeding and the fear 
instincts ; but attention to the taste, feeling, or appearance of 



194 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

food, or the characteristics of the object of fear, is due mainly 
to curiosity. Often there is a prolonged period of attention 
and interest, before action in the way of eating the food, or 
backing away from the fearful object, or of approaching for 
closer investigation. Curiosity may, therefore, either support 
or oppose the attention and interest excited by other instincts. 
For most instincts, however, especially for play and imitation, 
it is a forerunner and supporter in the sense of leading to a closer 
examination of objects, though this often results in checking the 
usual instinctive mode of reaction to those objects. 

The essential characteristic of a stimulus which arouses the 
instinct of curiosity is that of novelty. Since, however, a stim- 
ulus must have a certain degree of intensity to be effective, and 
as everything is at first new, it is the louder sounds, the brighter 
colors and stronger contrasts, as, for instance, the dark hair and 
white forehead of the mother, which secure the infant's attention 
when he begins to take notice in the latter part of the first quarter 
year. The sensations that are repeated, however, soon cease 
to be noticed, through loss of novelty. 

Close observation shows that certain objects, sounds, or colors 
are attended to longer and a greater number of times than others 
of equal or even greater intensity, objectively speaking. This 
suggests the well-known fact that stimuli are effective according 
to the sensitiveness of the organism to them rather than accord- 
ing to their mere objective strength. A sHght touch on a boil 
or a corn is a stronger stimulus than a hard blow on some other 
part ; in a similar way individuals differ greatly in sensitiveness 
to the same sounds, colors, and objects. As a child's instincts 
develop, he becomes more sensitive to certain stimuli, conse- 
quently his curiosity is more readily excited in some directions 
than in others. When a child's competitive instincts are strong, 
he likes to hear of contests ; and when he has been flying kites, 
he likes to hear how children in other countries and scientific 



DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — CURIOSITY 195 

men fly them. Children's interest or curiosity, therefore, changes 
with the development of new instincts and with new experiences. 

The tendency to imitation and play heightens the interest for 
a time by helping to disclose new characteristics of the object, 
then decreases it by effectually removing the essential element — 
newness. Though curiosity is thus continually destroyed by 
the results of its own action assisted by play, the knowledge 
thus acquired becomes the basis for a fresh growth of curiosity 
and play a little later. For example, colored cubes lose their 
interest when played with a great deal, only to regain it again 
and again as increased experience with other things prepares 
for new uses and the consequent observation of new charac- 
teristics. The child, after losing his interest in looking at 
and touching them, enjoys placing them in rows, or on top of 
each other, building houses of them, counting their sides and 
edges, comparing them with other solids, noting their weight 
and material as compared with other cubes, and finally study- 
ing geometrical relations of all kinds. Thus familiarity with 
the shape and composition of the first cubes prepares the way 
for noticing the characteristics of blocks differently shaped 
and composed, and also lays a foundation in experience for a 
study of mathematical relations. 

Since nothing is noticed as new except as it differs from the 
familiar, every familiarity prepares for a fresh novelty. The 
materials produced by the self-destructive acts of curiosity 
therefore furnish a rich soil for the growth of a more vigorous 
interest. This growth of interest through increase in knowl- 
edge may be illustrated mathematically. If you know but two 
characteristics of an object, you can compare these with two of 
another object; but if you know four, you can compare with 
four and thus make sixteen comparisons; while if you know 
eight, you can make sixty-four comparisons, or thirty-two times 
as many as when you knew only two. The increase is, therefore, 



196 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

in a geometrical ratio. To him who gains knowledge, more 
interest and knowledge is continually given. 

Curiosity has, therefore, two means of increasing interest: 
(i) through new stimuli gained by changing or enlarging one's 
environment, and (2) through increasing knowledge of familiar 
objects by the discovery of new relations. From the psycho- 
logical point of view the problem of interest is concerned chiefly 
with the effects of experience. Psychology shows how interest 
may be promoted by a changing or enlarging environment, and 
by increasing the knowledge of things already in the environment. 

From the child-study point of view, however, the problem is 
one of development. It is not to find how any particular kind of 
desirable interest may be increased by external influences, but 
to discover at what stages of organic and instinctive development 
the child is especially sensitive to certain phases of his surround- 
ings, or, in other words, to determine what interests, if any, are 
naturally strongest at each stage of development. This is a 
very diflicult matter because, as we have already seen, previous 
experience is such a large factor in interest that it is hard to tell 
what is interesting because of inner conditions of development, 
and what is interesting because of experience and training. 

CHANGES IN CURIOSITY WITH AGE 

Curiosity has so many forms, and the impulse toward the new 
so frequently alternates in children with the love of the familiar, 
as shown in love for old stories, games, etc., that the general 
course of development is hard to trace. There are times when 
nothing but something new will satisfy the child ; then again, 
he wants nothing but the old, the familiar. Such changes, 
though irregular, are frequent enough to suggest that curiosity 
impels to the perfecting of a system of knowledge of certain 
phases of the environment, then to a reaching out after a new 
environment. Play and imitation make the more obvious 



DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — CURIOSITY 197 

characteristics of this new territory familiar ; curiosity then leads 
to a fresh excursion into the new, but there is often a return to 
the old, which is then reviewed in the light of the new experience. 

Early in life, and whenever a new object is introduced, the 
kind of curiosity or interest excited by the mere fact of newness 
may be called empirical. Later, the same object excites curiosity, 
not because of the new sensations or ideas it gives, but because 
of the desire to trace the relation of some of its characteristics 
to those of other objects. The curiosity or interest thus excited 
may be called speculative or relational. 

The curiosity of children is doubtless largely empirical, partially 
because there are more new things for them to experience, while 
adults who have more knowledge to relate to whatever they 
perceive are more concerned with speculative interests. 

Before a child begins to talk, his interest is mainly in getting 
new sensations and noting their relations ; but when the instinct 
of expression awakens, names for experiences are sought in the 
constant question, "What is that?" which is satisfactorily 
answered by a name. After various objects and acts and the 
names for them become famihar, the interest changes to their 
relations, and the constant questions are: ''What is that for?" 
(use), and ''How do you do that?" or "What do you do that 
for?" (how and why). Again, for a time, interest goes from 
objects and acts to their origin, and the constant question is, 
"Where did that come from?" Later, "Why?" questions pre- 
dominate, but often with a little different meaning. They refer 
less to subjective reasons for doing a thing and more to common 
laws or general truths, e.g. "It is dark because the sun has gone 
down." Interest now is often concerned with the applications of 
truths that have previously been learned. "Is the sun down?" 
— "No." — "What makes it dark, then? " This stage is reached 
as early as the third or fourth year. Frequently at about this 
time every question regarding a general truth is succeeded by 



1 98 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

another **Why?" till the puzzled adult reaches what the per- 
sistent little questioner accepts as an ultimate reason, or the 
circle is completed and the first answer is given, or in exaspera- 
tion the child is told to ''keep still." 

From the earUest days of taking notice, movements and 
actions are the strongest stimuH to curiosity. This remains 
true all through life, but in the greatest degree before entering 
school and immediately after. Children of two years use nearly 
twice as large a proportion of action words as adults. Professor 
Shaw found that in school, the younger children, when asked to 
tell what they thought when certain words were named, men- 
tioned actions more frequently than the older ones; Barnes, 
that they were more interested in the use of things; and the 
author found that if asked to give a list of words, younger 
children gave more action words than older children and adults. 
Vostrovsky found that actions were prominent in children's 
own stories, and Kohler, that they remembered the action of 
stories told them better than descriptive details. 

As to other interests, Vostrovsky found that in children's 
stories names, appearance, time, place, and possession are prom- 
inent ; while Barnes found that in history they questioned most 
about cause and effect, who, why, personal detail, general detail, 
and least about time and truth. 

As to objects of interest, various studies of children's reading 
and of their spontaneous drawings indicate that they are inter- 
ested, in the earlier grades, in colors rather than in form, and in 
animals and children rather than in adults. 

As to the mental powers appealed to, Barnes found critical 
inferences most numerous at twelve and thirteen, and Lindley, 
interest in reasoning and puzzles greatest at twelve. 

At about twelve, interest in history greatly increases, as all 
studies of reading interests show, probably because history sup- 
plies in a representative form new environment and experience, 



DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — CURIOSITY 199 

but more particularly because the social instincts direct curiosity 
to the study of groups of people. A little later, moral and reli- 
gious questions have a great fascination, probably because the 
regulative instincts are developing. ^Esthetic interest also in- 
creases at this time. 

Since curiosity is modified by every new instinct, changes in 
curiosity may serve as signs of the development of new instincts. 
The boy's interest in fables prepares him for wise action in the 
pursuit of his individual ends, and the youth's historical interest 
in groups of men, for performing his part as a social being. 

CURIOSITY AND EDUCATION 

Long ago Plato said, "Curiosity is the mother of all knowl- 
edge" ; but too often since then she has been regarded as merely 
the mother of gossip and scandal. The latter, however, are 
illegitimate children, resulting from poor feeding and union 
with small and unworthy passions. The legitimate offspring 
of curiosity are interest, learning, science, and love of truth. 

Children enter school as animated interrogation points, and 
instead of having their mental hunger gratified, they are stuffed 
with knowledge they have not asked for, and required to answer 
instead of being led to question, until their intellectual appetite 
is dulled and only the most stimulating diet appeals to them. 
They are led to study only by the desire for approbation, or by 
some form of compulsion or reward. It is not the truth they are 
after, but the words and acts which will satisfy the teacher; 
hence, the slightest change in her expression or tone of voice 
often leads them to modify their statements. 

Unfortunately, curiosity and interest, Kke play, are often 
identified with amusement, by many teachers, when as a matter 
of fact, healthy curiosity is one of the strongest stimuli to effort. 
Of the two ways of exciting curiosity, that of giving new expe- 
riences by showing or describing something never seen before, 



200 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

and that of directing attention to unobserved qualities or rela- 
tions of familiar objects, the first is unfortunately the mode 
more often used by those who try to interest children in their 
lessons. In many cases, therefore, teaching has become nothing 
more than the art of amusing. The result is that all the sweet- 
ness is taken out of a subject before there is anything of value 
learned about it, and subsequent teachers find it almost impos- 
sible to interest the children in these unpalatable and half-chewed 
materials. Not only has the delightful flavor of newness been 
removed from the subject, but the mental habit of taking rich 
food instead of working for daily bread has been cultivated, 
until in many ways the children are, intellectually, pampered 
weaklings. Their curiosity is aroused only by intellectual doses 
highly seasoned with the new and marvelous, administered by 
teachers who know of no other way of appealing to interest. 

The old-fashioned discipline of rod and ferule, wielded accord- 
ing to fixed rules, compelled the scholastic prisoners to learn 
their trade, and thus effective intellectual workmen were often 
turned out, who had performed difficult and unpleasant tasks 
till they had no thought of hesitating at any drudgery. Unwise 
attempts to carry out the imperfectly understood doctrine of 
interest have developed intellectual laziness and repugnance 
to effort. 

Properly understood and applied, however, the doctrine of 
interest will emancipate, not enervate, children intellectually. 
Just as a free laborer does a vast deal more work than the most 
closely watched slave, and does it with a pleasure and self-re- 
spect the slave can never feel, so does the child, working under 
the stimulus of interest, accomplish far more intellectually and 
morally than the uninterested urchin who slaved at his task 
under the watchful eye of the old-time teacher. 

Interest that is educationally valuable is not that which 
pleases and amuses (though a little such interest is helpful, 



DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — CURIOSITY 201 

especially with young children), but that kind of interest which 
causes effort to be put forth in order to satisfy the hunger for 
knowledge. The real test of interest is not how much pleasure 
do the children get out of the study, but how much efort do they 
put forth in pursuing it. Curiosity, like play, may be the stimu- 
lus to an immense amount of what would otherwise be drudgery. 

The conditions most favorable for rendering curiosity a strong 
motive to effort are (i) the perception of the relation of what is 
being studied to familiar and interesting experience and knowl- 
edge, and (2) receptivity to the kind of knowledge being gained 
because it is suited to the stage of development the individual 
has reached. Many other things are helpful, but these are the 
most important essentials. How to bring about the first condi- 
tion is the problem of psychology and pedagogy, while the 
second condition can only be secured through child-study in- 
vestigations. 

The purposes of education must determine what shall be 
taught; psychology, how or in what order subjects shall be 
taught, that each subject and part of subject may form a basis 
of interest for the next ; while child study must say when and 
how certain teaching shall be given, in order that the natural 
curiosity and interest of each age may be utilized. The teacher 
should use her skill in associating studies with the child's instinc- 
tive tendencies at the time, and with his more recent activities, 
that there may be no lack of natural, healthy interest regarding 
every subject as it is pursued. 

If properly appealed to, curiosity alone is a sufficient motive 
for the invasion of every fresh field of knowledge ; while imita- 
tion and play will supply the practice and drill necessary to insure 
continued possession of it. These instincts may very properly 
be supported by others, especially the desire for approbation 
in the earlier years, the pleasures of competition, and the desire 
for results, in the later years of school life. 



202 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

Exercises for Students 

1. Has the search for scientific truths usually been carried on in order 
that they might be directly applied in practical life, or merely that the truth 
may be known? Mention some such truth that has proved useful. 

2. Give illustrations of knowledge of environment, gained by yourself 
or by children through mere curiosity, that will prove or has proved useful 
later. 

3. Illustrate how stronger or newer stimuH excite curiosity. 

4. Give examples of children who are especially curious regarding certain 
objects, acts, or lines of thought. 

5. Give illustrations of the relation of curiosity {a) to other instincts, 
(6) to past experience. 

6. Illustrate from your own experience or observation how increase in 
knowledge develops new phases of interest. 

7. Show how interest may be increased through new experience gained 
by enlargement of mental environment, without changing one's location. 

8. Illustrate further how increased knowledge of familiar things has 
increased the interest of yourself or of others. 

9. Give illustrations of children's interest (a) in the old, (b) in the new, 
(c) of fresh interest in the old, after study in other Hnes. 

10. Can you determine what were the causes of your interest in certain 
kinds of reading at different ages ? 

11. Give instances in which children seek to give the answers the teacher 
wants rather than to find out and state the truth. 

12. Illustrate what children will sometimes do of themselves in the way 
of investigation and study when curiosity is excited. 

13. Give illustrations of how teachers may or have connected topics with 
recent experiences and interesting activities outside of school. 

Suggestions for Reading 

On curiosity as an instinct, see Lindsay, Mind in the Lower Animals, pp. 
252-256; Ribot, Psychology of the Emotions, pp. 368-379; Groos, Play 
of Animals, pp. 214-222 ; Morgan, Comparative Psychology, pp. 297-298. 

For researches and discussions of the interests of children, read, besides the 
observations on infants, Barnes, Studies in Ed., Vol. I, pp. 15-17, 43" 
52, 83-93, 203-212, 222-227, Vol. II, pp. 338-351 ; Shaw, Ch. S. Mo., 
Vol. II, pp. 152-167 ; Taylor, Ped. Sem., Vol. V, pp. 497-511 ; Laing, 
Ed. Rev., Vol. XVI, pp. 381-390; Wissler, Ch. S. Mo., Vol. IV, pp. 



DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE INSTINCTS — CURIOSITY 203 

139-146; Fed. Sent., Vol. V, pp. 523-540; Clapp, Pop. Sci. Mo., Vol. 
XLIV, pp. 799-809 ; Griffith, Ch. S, Mo., Vol. IV, pp. 285-287 ; O'Shea, 
Ch. S. Mo., Vol. II, pp. 266-278, or N. E. A., 1896, pp. 873-881; 
Luckey, N. E. A., 1897, pp. 284-288 ; N. W. Mo., Vol. VII, pp. 67, 96, 
T-33i 156, 221, 245, 306, 335; Harrison, Child Nature, chap, ii; Com- 
payre, Vol. II, pp. 17-28. 





Later References 






Books 




De Garmo 
Dewey 
Drummond 
HaU(i,2,&3) 


King (i) 
Kirkpatrick (3) 
Kratz 
Magnus 


Sandiford 

Sully 

Swift (i & 2) 

Tanner 



Articles 

Anderson, Roxanna E. A Preliminary Study of the Reading Tastes of 

High School Pupils. Ped. Sem., 1912, Vol. 19, pp. 438-460. 
Conradi, E. Children's Interest in Words, Slang, Stories, etc. Ped. Sem., 

1903, Vol. 10, pp. 359-404- 
Guillet, Cephas. A Study in Interests. Ped. Sem., 1907, Vol. 14, pp. 

322-328, 474-487. 
Hall, G. S., and Smith, T. L. Curiosity and Interest. Ped. Sem., 1903, 

Vol. 10, pp. 513-558. 
Thayer, Alice. A Study of Children's Interest in Flowers. Ped. Sem., 

1905, Vol. 12, pp. 107-140, 



CHAPTER XIII 

DEVELOPMENT OF INSTINCTS - REGULATIVE 

I. Moral Instincts 

PREPARATORY STAGE OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT 

The child's instincts are nearly as independent of each other 
and also as dependent and as closely related as are individuals 
in the social organism. Each instinct stimulates to action for 
its own gratification, just as each man seeks his own interests. 
The individual in society learns that certain actions are undesir- 
able, because they result in other persons performing acts that 
are unpleasant to him. Out of such experiences grow the laws 
governing society. The child finds that some instinctive acts 
are more pleasurable than others, or that one kind of act inter- 
feres with another, and thus learns to regulate his conduct. He is 
also impressed less directly with their undesirability by the atti- 
tude of other people. For example, a child who was drinking 
water in such a way as to get his dress wet, said, "1 don't care if 
it does run down on me." Mamma, ''But I care ; it isn't nice, 
and if you do it any more I shall take your glass away." Child, 
"I won't do it any more then, never." 

The child is at first neither moral nor immoral, but unmoral. 
He is acting according to his natural instincts when biting and 
striking his mother as much as when he is hugging and kissing 
her, and no more. In both cases he acts as his instincts and 
f eeHngs at the moment prompt, and to him one act is just as good 
as the other. Experience, however, soon teaches him that one 

204 



DEVELOPMENT OF INSTINCTS — REGULATIVE 205 

kind of act brings pleasant results in the way of approbation and 
favors, while the other brings him disapprobation and perhaps 
punishment. He thus learns that some acts are better than 
others. ''Better," however, means to him primarily more pleas- 
urable in results to himself rather than morally better. He is 
not kind or cruel in a moral sense, neither is he truthful or un- 
truthful, honest or dishonest ; but he readily learns to be which- 
ever secures him the most advantages. 

What habits of action he shall form, or what he shall come to 
regard as right or wrong, is wholly a matter of experience and 
training. The law of his nature at this time impels him to 
conform to his environment in such a way as to get as much 
pleasure and as little pain as possible. For about a dozen years 
this individualistic law of life holds almost complete sway ; hence, 
this is the period during which the child is naturally unmoral. 
It is distinctively a preparatory stage of moral development ; yet 
it is not for that reason any the less important. The founda- 
tions of a future less individualistic and more altruistic moral 
life are being laid. 

MORAL TRAINING DURING THE PREPARATORY STAGE 

In this stage should be developed : (i) regularity of physical 
and mental processes, (2) the consciousness that it pays to do 
right, (3) the tendency to inhibit impulses, (4) to endure hard- 
ships, (5) to wait for future good, (6) to take pain before pleasure, 
(7) to seek the satisfaction of higher instincts, (8) to form right 
habits, (9) to act from increasingly higher motives, (10) to form 
right ideals, (11) to obey, (12) to exercise self-control. 

(i) Since regulation of action is an important phase of moral 
training, and since unconscious actions influence conscious 
choices, the preparation for a moral life may begin in infancy. 
The foundations of morality should be laid by the development of 
regularity in the more or less unconscious organic processes of 



206 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

sleeping, eating, and eliminating waste materials from the body. 
Parents should, therefore, seek to establish regularity in these 
respects, not only as a condition of health, but as a solid basis for 
the development of a stable, moral character. Individuals with 
such habits are not necessarily more moral, but it is easier for 
them to be so. 

(2) As soon as the infant notices the results of his actions, 
consciousness may be utilized in the development of moral habits 
and the acquisition of moral truths. In doing this one must see 
to it that right actions are followed sooner or later by pleasurable 
results to the child, and wrong actions by disagreeable results, 
because both bhnd instinct and acute intelligence impel to the 
repetition of actions having pleasurable results, and the avoidance 
of those whose results are painful. The child should come to 
realize a fundamental, though not the highest, of moral truths, 
''It pays to do right." 

(3) The first step in self-control may be taken by getting chil- 
dren to inhibit, for a short time, organic and instinctive im- 
pulses. An assuring word that causes a child to stop crying 
for food till preparations for giving it to him are completed, 
may become a sign to him that if he is quiet, his wants will soon 
be satisfied, and the time of waiting may be gradually lengthened. 

Care must be taken, especially at first, that the interval between 
assurance and satisfaction is short, or fretting will be renewed, 
and the word intended to quiet will become instead the signal for 
a period of crying. The cry of the infant is a most useful, in- 
stinctive mode of obtaining parental help, but its function is to 
attract attention of parents rather than to force them, by its 
continuance, to respond. The latter function is, however, very 
readily taken up if a long period of crying is allowed to precede 
the satisfaction of wants. Moral development is promoted by 
getting the child to inhibit the crying impulse as soon as possible, 
by quieting words and prompt reUef , if they are to be given at all. 



DEVELOPMENT OF INSTINCTS — REGULATIVE 207 

(4) Repressing impulses and doing disagreeable tasks should 
also be encouraged by desirable results following such actions. 
The child who can be induced to stop crying when hurt, face 
danger when afraid, or to continue carrying a heavy load when 
tired, by desire for the approval he will get as a ''brave boy," is 
gaining in moral development When a child can be induced 
to put forth effort to control self or accomplish any task through 
the desire to satisfy the competitive instinct by winning, he is 
also developing morally. If, however, he gains advantages over 
another, not by effort, but by yielding to the natural impulse to 
cry and fret about the success or advantages of others (as when 
jealous), there is a development of undesirable impulses instead 
of control, and the effect is demoralizing. 

(5) As children grow older they should learn that it often pays 
to delay the gratification of an impulse for a time, in order that a 
greater pleasure may be experienced later. "If you eat now you 
can have bread only, while if you wait until dinner is ready you 
may have other things." "If you will keep quiet till I get 
through, you may then look at this and ask as many questions 
as you wish." "If you do not buy candy to-day but save your 
pennies, you can get a doll next week." "If you rest awhile and 
wait till the others are ready, I think you will enjoy your game 
more." 

(6) "Work before play and pain before pleasure,^' is a good 
motto. If a disagreeable task is to be performed or pain suffered, 
in connection with a pleasure or reward, it is always better to 
have the pleasure or reward last, since anticipation lightens the 
pain and effort, perhaps even making the act pleasurable, while 
the pleasure afterward is enjoyed all the more because of the 
effort by which it was obtained. If the order is reversed, 
pleasure is lessened by dread, and pain increased by thought 
of previous pleasure. If every child were led to form the habit 
of enjoying reward only after earning it, the world would be 



2o8 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

vastly happier and better. The pampering and demoralizing 
tendency to get what has not yet been earned, by going in debt, 
gambling, or speculating, is the natural result of a childhood that 
has been allowed to take the sweet first, then dodge the bitter 
or to take it with much fussing and grumbling. 

The underlying truth here is that every sort of satisfaction 
must be earned or paid for in some way, and the child's experience 
should impress this truth upon him along with the truth that 
most is obtained by paying in advance. 

(7) The conscious states or motives preceding action, as well 
as those succeeding, are significant from the dawn of volition, 
and increasingly important as an essential element in moral acts. 
As soon as an action becomes purposive rather than blindly im- 
pulsive, the aim is the satisfaction of some instinct. Since the 
kind of instincts whose satisfaction is most sought determines 
in a large measure the moral character of an individual, it is 
important that the habit of seeking to satisfy the higher instincts 
should be developed as far as possible, even in early childhood. 
If a child chooses to gratify the higher social impulse of desire 
for approval by offering the best to others, instead of gratifying 
the lower individuaHstic impulse to take the best for himself, he 
is forming a most excellent moral habit. If, however, his desire 
for approval leads him to say what he does not believe, in order 
to secure the favor of others, the effect is demoralizing. 

(8) It must never be forgotten that the formation of habits 
is the important thing in the preparatory stage of moral develop- 
ment, since they will ultimately determine motives and ideals. 
If none but the lowest motive will produce right action, that 
motive should be appealed to in order that the right action may 
be performed. Again, no motive, however high, should be ap- 
pealed to, if it is certain to fail to call forth right action, because 
the separation of habits and ideals thus produced is sure to dis- 
integrate moral character. The general rule to be followed is : 



DEVELOPMENT OF INSTINCTS — REGULATIVE 209 

Be sure to secure right action even if a low motive must he appealed 
to, hut always appeal to the highest motive that will he effective. If 
children are forced, without arousing too much antagonism on 
their part, to do as they should for a sufficient length of time, 
the tendency to act in that way becomes stronger than to act in 
any other way. They also come to take pleasure in doing what 
they have developed a tendency to do, though at first it was not 
agreeable. On the other hand, if matters are so arranged that 
right doing always has pleasanter results than wrong doing, 
right actions are consciously chosen and more quickly become 
habitual. 

Moral progress is measured, not only by increase in the 
number of right acts, but by increased tendency to perform acts 
from higher motives. A child who is polite for a long time, 
through fear of punishment, may remain polite because of the 
social advantages thus secured. Later, he may be polite to one 
outside of his circle from the kindly motive of encouraging him, or 
from a genuine feeling of brotherhood. In this, as in other cases, 
a habit formed from a low motive may make it possible for a 
higher motive to be effective. On the other hand, the habit of 
politeness may be more quickly and firmly established by appeal 
to the imitative instinct and the desire for approval. 

(9) In general, the motives to action may be ranked as follows : 
the pleasurable, as higher than the disagreeable of the same 
general kind, and the instincts to be satisfied, in this gradation 
from lower to higher, — individualistic, adaptive, racial, social, 
regulative. Of course some forms of each of these instincts are 
higher than some in a class above them ; for instance, the social 
desire for approbation is not only lower than the social desire 
to be helpful to others, but also lower than the racial desire to 
care for children ; hence, the ranking given above is subject to 
many changes, according to the form of each instinct involved. 

Any substitution of a lower motive for a higher which has 



2IO FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

hitherto been effective, is demoralizing. A man is, therefore, 
degraded by voting even his party ticket for money or by re- 
ceiving pay for granting justice. Personal service is often un- 
justly regarded as one of the lowest occupations, probably be- 
cause those engaged in it are supposed to be actuated wholly by 
individuahstic motives, in performing acts that are, in their 
nature, social. Keeping a boarding house is not dishonorable, 
but it is often hard for one who has hospitably entertained friends 
a great deal, to receive guests for pay without feeHng that she 
is in part doing for a lower motive what she has been in the habit 
of doing only from a higher motive. Ministers, doctors, and 
teachers are retrograding morally if they are thinking more of 
the pay they are to receive and less of the good they are trying 
to do. Mechanics and merchants are advancing morally as they 
think more and more of doing their work well and of rendering 
good service to the world. 

Undoubtedly, most acts are performed from mixed motives, 
but usually one stands out in the individual's mind as the con- 
trolHng factor. When an individual is consciously acting for a 
high motive, it is either insulting or degrading to try to make a 
lower one prominent in his consciousness. To offer for social 
favors similar favors is all right, but to let another understand 
that he will gain financially by social favors or by philanthropy 
is either insulting or demoralizing. 

To impute a higher motive to an act that is really being per- 
formed from a lower, is sometimes almost equally bad in its 
effects, because the individual is often thus led to beheve that he 
is really acting benevolently, when his act is wholly selfish. Men 
who pay a low price for a good supper, therefore, often pride 
themselves on their benevolence to the church or other cause. 

(lo) Ideals are helpful in childhood in forming habits, but 
are not usually strong enough to be depended upon to produce 
right action, except as they are founded on well-established habits 



DEVELOPMENT OF INSTINCTS — REGULATIVE 211 

or supported by expectation of desirable consequences. For 
example, a little girl, with clear ideals as to being helpful, thought- 
ful, and pleasant, and a genuine desire to be so, rarely holds 
herself to those ideals a whole day, but did so for over a week, 
when she thought a promised hammock was not Hkely to come till 
she had been pleasant for some time. Unconscious habits of 
right action, as well as pleasurable results of acting from higher 
motives, are important factors in the building of effective moral 
ideals. The training given in the preparatory stage should not be 
concerned so much with the formation of conscious ideals, which 
at this time are usually very changeable, as with the habits and 
feelings that underlie them and make them prominent and 
effective forces in the next stage of moral development. 

(11) Obedience, which is regarded by many as the chief virtue 
of childhood, is important not for its own sake, but for what it 
involves. It necessarily involves inhibiting and controlling im- 
pulses of all kinds, and produces habits of acting according to 
law. This is important, since in a state or an individual any kind 
of government or law is likely to be better than anarchy. These 
advantages result only when the one who enforces the obedience 
is entirely consistent, for otherwise the advantages of occasional 
inhibitions are neutralized by the fact that no settled habits of 
action are formed. 

Obedience to personal authority is in reality conforming to 
a more or less artificial environment, and it fits for a useful and 
effective life in proportion as this artificial environment, which 
inflicts pain and pleasure for the various acts performed, is in 
accordance with natural law^s and moral ideals. If it results in 
making good acts painful and evil ones pleasurable, and in hatred 
for law, it is distinctly demoralizing in its effects, as is also the 
case when only lower motives for obedience are appealed to. If, 
on the other hand, the personal authority is consistent and 
natural, so that obedience involves little more than conformity 



212 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

to the essentials of the natural environment of the child, the 
effects are decidedly good, because right habits are more quickly 
and effectively developed, and natural results that would be too 
intangible or remote to be effective are emphasized or made real 
and immediate by substitution. Authority should prevent the 
child from performing acts whose consequences would be very 
serious or fatal. If they are immediate, but not serious, he 
should be warned, then allowed to perform the act and receive 
the natural consequences. For example, a child should not 
be prevented from touching something hot, but he should not be 
allowed to eat poison. 

The person who exercises authority is also an important 
addition to the child's environment, and exerts great influence 
for good or ill by his personality, as well as by the way in which 
he exercises authority and calls attention to higher or lower 
motives of conduct. 

(12) It should be clearly recognized by every one in authority 
that obedience is only a means to an end, the end always being 
self-control. Strict control by another, till habits of action are 
formed, is often, for a young or perverted child, the best prepara- 
tion for self-control, for it makes his habits his alHes, so that he 
has what he lacked before — the power of controlling himself. 
Arrest of development, however, always results if the power of 
self-control is not given a chance for exercise soon after it is 
developed. Authority should enforce obedience in one field 
of action after another, and then leave the child free to control 
the field that has been conquered. Obedience is a temporary 
and immature virtue, which becomes mature and lasting only 
when it grows into free self-control, by appropriating outer laws 
and making them inner standards of conduct. 

If children are freed from personal authority, they must as a 
rule be responsible for the natural consequences of their acts ; 
otherwise freedom is disastrous. 



DEVELOPMENT OF INSTINCTS — REGULATIVE 213 
TRANSITION STAGE OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT 

Up to about twelve years of age the moral condition is almost 
wholly the result of environment and training. These may make 
the child into the semblance of an angel or an imp, yet he can be 
neither. He is not essentially good or bad, because though his 
actions have that form, they have not that spirit. Every action 
is the result of an impulse, a habit, or a choice, which has for its 
end the pleasure or advantage of self in some way. This is 
the one law governing the child's conscious action, whatever 
instinct or motive is involved, and however remote or concealed 
the advantage to self may be. If well trained, the child has 
learned to find his pleasure in acts of politeness and kindness, 
and if ill trained, in rudeness and cruelty ; but in either case the 
action is fundamentally for his own ends, not for the good or 
hurt of another. 

With the dawn of pubescence, however, a new instinct — the 
racial — • emerges. In its very nature this instinct impels to 
action for others rather than for self. The inner law which says, 
*'Act for yourself," is now for the first time opposed by the law 
which says, ''Act for others." The choice is no longer merely 
between possible advantages for self, or ways of getting them, 
but between acting for self or for others. Kind and selfish acts 
are now, for the first time, morally kind or selfish, for they rep- 
resent the free choice of actions for self or for others. The 
individual has begun to live the life, not merely of the individual, 
but also of the race. 

If he has been prepared for this by cooperative games in 
which he acts for the good of the group rather than for his own 
exaltation, and if his training has been such that he already has 
the habit of acting for the advantage of others, then there is no 
break in the moral progress. Figuratively speaking, the racial 
instinct infuses life into the moral mechanism, the wheels revolve 



214 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

more rapidly, and the engineer begins to direct its course accord- 
ing to his own judgment, instead of merely obeying orders or 
following impulses. The youth is no longer merely an individual, 
but one of the world's forces, and he feels the obligation, not 
merely to live, but to do. It is no longer himself and the world, 
but himself as a part of the world. He begins to feel as never 
before his own responsibility for that self. The old impulse to get 
all he can for self is partially replaced by the impulse to be all 
that he can for himself and to do all that he can for the world. 

This is the age of idealistic imitation and of ideals. Works 
of art, heroic lives, and religious ceremonies take on a new mean- 
ing. Ambitions and ideals are no longer dependent on the imme- 
diate environment, but the most beautiful, the noblest, and the 
highest are chosen from the larger world of history, literature, 
and art. In the earlier stage of this wider life, the most attractive 
ideals are frequently very crude. Boys are most appealed to by 
action, power, and courage; hence not merely history, but all 
kinds of stories of adventure in which marvels of skill and bravery 
are shown, are their delight. Such types of character as are here 
represented are sometimes imitated regardless of the nature of 
the actions in which they appear. 

With girls, there is something of the same attraction toward 
the strange and wonderful, but the more passive virtues of love 
and devotion under trying circumstances are most interesting; 
hence romantic stories are much in favor with girls at this age. 

This is a period of change in attitude toward ideals, which 
are for a while often contradictory and variable. It is a time 
of transition from personal authority to abstract law, during 
which there may be considerable lawlessness, especially in cases 
where control has been entirely external. The rules of the game 
and the unformulated rules imposed by the customs and public 
sentiment of the class, school, gang, or society, are usually 
observed with the greatest care. The social customs of polite 



DEVELOPMENT OF INSTINCTS — REGULATIVE 215 

society and fashion in dress are often first despised and flagrantly- 
violated, then respected and most slavishly followed. Laws of 
state come to be regarded in a different light, and principles of 
morality take on an entirely new meaning. Laws of all kinds 
are viewed, not simply from the standpoint of personal interest, 
but as a part of the larger life of the world now revealed. 

MORAL TRAINING IN THE TRANSITION PERIOD 

There can be no moral action where the individual does not 
have the chance to choose for himself ; hence, if genuine morality 
develops at this period, it must be through self -direction. The 
second essential is plenty of ideals for imitation ; the third, good 
companions ; and fourth, wholesome public sentiment in school, 
class, and social circles. 

(i) Self -direction does not mean that no authority shall be 
exercised over the youth, but that the authority shall not be 
merely that of a person arbitrarily dictating and enforcing what 
the youth shall do. Personal authority, however valuable in 
a previous stage, especially in the early years, must now be 
relaxed, and 'example and advice, preferably in the form of 
suggestion, substituted. There is never a time when personal au- 
thority of parents and teachers counts for so little, and personal 
character for so much. Arbitrary authority is ridiculed, evaded, 
defied, or shamefacedly yielded to as unworthy the developing 
man. At the same time the youth is a most ardent hero wor- 
shiper and imitator of what to him is ideal. 

Commands and rules should be based on general principles, 
and should not be numerous or cover minute details of conduct. 
The youth should be allowed to learn through his own experiences 
many of the truths of nature and life. This is the time of all 
others when outer laws should be adopted as inner standards of 
action, and are likely to be, if they are founded on broad general 
principles and prepared for by previous training. 



2i6 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

Under wise guidance, this is also a favorable time for giving 
practice in making and executing laws, or, in other words, for 
the introduction of some measure of self-government. At this 
age, when personal authority is losing its power, when the 
attitude toward law is changing, and when principles of action 
for Hfe are being chosen, nothing will help more in producing re- 
gard for laws and a feeling of obligation to obey them, than expe- 
rience in making and executing them. ResponsibiHty of some 
kind in which the youth has perfect freedom of choice, but must 
take the consequences, is the kind of freedom needed, rather than 
that in which he is free to choose, but is at the same time shielded 
from the results of his choice. 

(2) The ideals, early in this stage, must be personal. Reading 
is their great source at this time, especially for boys. Nearly 
every boy, however, finds one or more heroes in his local environ- 
ment, usually in an older man or sometimes in a woman. Some 
of these may be partial ideals, as of strength or skill or beauty 
or knowledge ; but one is likely to be a moral ideal, the embodi- 
ment of all that is noble and worthy. Girls are almost sure to 
find some such ideal in an older woman, and often the feeling 
inspired is not unlike that felt later for a lover. 

The choice of such personal ideals by youths and maidens 
cannot readily be directed and controlled, and one can only hope 
that it will be fortunate. The actions of such chosen demi-gods 
and goddesses are often, unconsciously to themselves, the source 
of keenest joy and grief to their admirers, whose whole future 
life is not infrequently molded by them. 

Training in the choice of moral ideals is best given by present- 
ing instances of heroism and virtue in history and story, and 
dwelling on them long enough to stir admiration but without 
any preaching. Formal statements and discussion of general prin- 
ciples of morality are also often valuable as giving youths clearer 
and better standards of action. Care must be taken not to 



DEVELOPMENT OF INSTINCTS — REGULATIVE 217 

interfere with freedom of choice by exhortation and urging; 
for in their very nature ideals must be freely chosen by the in- 
dividual because they appeal to something within him, and not 
because somebody else finds them good. The teacher's art con- 
sists in presenting them in a form likely to be attractive. If 
principles of conduct are stated by one who holds a hero's place 
in the minds of his hearers, or are given as having been practiced 
by a hero, they are more likely to be accepted than if simply 
stated and urged for acceptance. 

Every youth should have opportunity and encouragement to 
do something toward carrying out his ideals. If, to do so, he 
must sacrifice self to some extent, all the better. This is pre- 
eminently the time for developing altruism in deed as well as in 
thought. The youth should now attain to the higher stage of 
doing right, even when it seems sure not to pay. 

(3) Companions, especially chums, are chosen by youths 
and maidens themselves, and only incidentally can the educator 
determine these choices. Boys more often have a group of 
companions, and girls a single chum, with whom they wish to 
be every moment while the intimacy lasts, which may be for 
days or for years. Associations with these companions may ex- 
ercise greater moral influence on young persons than association 
with adults. 

(4) The public sentiment of school and class, which may be 
regarded as an emanation from companions, is to some extent 
under the control of the wise teacher. He should not only know 
what it is, and make use of it in governing the school, but he 
should mold it into a finer and nobler form. The general moral 
tone of a neighborhood, a school, or a society should also be one 
of the most important considerations in placing a youth, for 
nothing more surely determines his future character. 



2i8 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

II. Religious Instincts 

PREPARATORY STAGE OF RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT 

The credulity and trustfulness of children, and their dramatic 
and symbohc tendencies during the period of childhood, make it 
possible to impart to them the forms of any religion. Any kind 
of religious instruction, especially that which involves observing 
and taking part in rehgious ceremonies during childhood, leaves 
a permanent impression upon the mind and heart. The theolog- 
ical behefs taught may later be utterly rejected by the intellect, 
as are fairy and ghost stories ; but the forms, phrases, and cere- 
monies still stir the heart. 

It is perfectly evident that there can be no comprehension of 
abstract theology during this period, though some sort of crude 
doctrine or cosmology is needed to satisfy the child's questions 
regarding causes and reasons. That the deeper religious feelings 
cannot be aroused during childhood is less evident, but scarcely 
less certain. The child has great capacity for fear and faith, 
which are important elements in reverence and worship. He 
also has a strong tendency to love whatever brings him pleasure. 
What he lacks is the vital element of religion in its higher form, 
the impulse to self-surrender — the spirit which says, "Do with 
me as thou wilt." Every instinct of the child says, "Do for me as 
I wish, and I will love and serve thee. ' ' This sentiment, however, 
is not greatly different from much of that shown forth in the Old 
Testament, though it is, from the deeper sentiment of the Old 
and New Testaments, and of the sacred books of other great 
religions. 

RELIGIOUS TRAINING IN CHILDHOOD 

The training should not be predominantly intellectual, for 
the child is incapable of forming abstract religious conceptions, 
and the ideas that he does form are almost sure to change later. 



DEVELOPMENT OF INSTINCTS — REGULATIVE 219 

An element of mystery in forms and ceremonies also makes them 
far more fascinating and impressive to the child than any acts 
which he thinks he understands. In general, therefore, training 
during this period should be of the heart rather than of the 
head, and perhaps even more of the hand, i.e., a training in 
doing, or, in other words, taking part in religious forms. 

The training must vary according to the kind of religion for 
which the child is being prepared. As a preparation for all 
kinds of religion, however, the moral training previously de- 
scribed and the cultivation of the spirit of reverence are distinctly 
helpful. 

The rehgious training of Catholics is a most admirable prep- 
aration for that religion which is based on authority. The large 
number of symbols and the ceremonies suggesting unexplained 
mysteries, in which the children take some part at stated times, 
are woven into their life in a way which makes them an in- 
destructible part of it. They are thus prepared for accepting 
whatever is taught by the embodiment of all this mystery — 
the church and its priests, who are beings apart from other men. 

The rehgious training of Protestantism is often far less effective, 
because it seeks to be more intellectual and to teach absolute 
truths instead of symbols of unexplainable mysteries. It appeals 
far less to the symboHc and dramatic tendencies of childhood, 
which are then strongest. Authority of person or book is the 
basis of teaching, because most of what is taught cannot be 
brought within the child's experience. Since, however, religion 
is usually taught as a personal matter, reason is continually 
appealed to. The child is almost compelled to think and feel, 
if taught that not the things he does, but his mental states when 
doing them, are the important factors in religion. In thus ignor- 
ing the strongest instincts of childhood (symbolic and dramatic 
tendencies) , and in enforcing authority while appeahng to reason, 
and in trying to make the child subjective instead of objective. 



220 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

Protestantism has a difficult task, and it is a wonder that it 
succeeds as well as it does. The changes needed to make Protes- 
tant religious instruction more effective during this period are, 
on the negative side, to cease trying to give children much theo- 
logical instruction at this time or to make them consciously and 
subjectively religious, and on the positive side, to give more op- 
portunity for children to take part in whatever religious forms 
and ceremonies are practiced, to inculcate reverence for sacred 
things in connection with the development of moral habits. 

For this period, the cruder and more objective religion of the 
Old Testament, and some of the narratives of the New Testa- 
ment, are far more suitable than the finer and more subjective 
teaching of Christ and his apostles and of the psalms. Few 
stories in all literature can be compared with those of the Old 
Testament as instruments of moral and religious instruction, 
and their moral value remains, whatever belief is held regarding 
their origin and Hteral truth. 

Without entering into details, the great thing in religious 
training before twelve years of age is not to make children reli- 
gious in the fullest sense of the word, but to prepare them for 
becoming religious by cultivating feelings and habits which will 
be in accordance with the religious impulse when it is felt. In 
doing this, religious conceptions should be left in a crude, plastic 
form, that they may be molded to fit the broader life of the 
individual, instead of having to be torn out of the mind and 
replaced by others, to which early feelings and habits do not so 
readily attach themselves. 

THE PERIOD OF RELIGIOUS AWAKENING 

During the adolescent period, when the dawning parental 
instincts impel the youth to act not merely for self, but as a part 
of the world and for the good of the world, he is driven to consider 
not merely laws, people, and institutions, but also the Power and 



DEVELOPMENT OF INSTINCTS — REGULATIVE 221 

Intelligence lying back of it all. At this stage, when idealistic 
imitation is so strong, and impulses of self-sacrifice are stirring 
the nature of the youth, the Supreme Ideal of power, wisdom, 
and goodness can scarcely fail to attract him and arouse aspiration 
and devotion. The vital breath has come, and this is the time 
of all others for the development of genuine religion ; hence, it 
is not strange that this is the period during which by far the 
larger number of people become consciously religious. Space 
does not permit a full treatment of this topic ; hence, it must be 
omitted, or studied in the references cited below. 

Exercises for Students 

1. Give illustrations of difference among various nations and among 
different children, as to ideas of right and wrong. 

2. Should children be allowed to do a great deal of lunching between 
meals? Why? Mention several habits not usually considered moral, 
which may be a basis for moral action. 

3. Illustrate how children may be taught that it pays to do right. 

4. Is there any moral value in having a child wait until others have been 
served at the table? Why? Illustrate further how the power to inhibit 
impulses may be developed. 

5. Have hard work and difficult games a moral value? Why? Give 
specific illustrations. 

6. Do children's savings banks have any moral effects? Why? 

7. Is there a good psychological basis for the custom of having dessert 
at the close instead of at the beginning of the meal? A teacher said, "' I 
will read you a good story ; then I shall expect you to study very hard the 
rest of the afternoon." Was she wise? Why? 

8. A Httle girl ate very slowly because she did not wish a visitor to think 
her greedy. What instinct was uppermost in that case? Give other 
examples of the conflict of instinctive impulses. 

9. Mention some cases in which you think it best to get right habits of 
action even by means of low motives, and other cases in which higher instincts 
may be aroused. 

10. Indicate whether the following acts were elevating or degrading 
morally, (a) Mrs. Burnett, when a little girl, would not say a certain name 



22 2 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

was pretty, though she thought the lady asking her would be very much 
hurt if she did not. (b) A boy took from a dish the largest and reddest 
apple before passing it to a visitor, {c) A little girl who carefully covered a 
younger sister who had fallen asleep was, upon the return of her parents, 
given ten cents by her father. The next time her parents went away she 
got her little sister to lie down and be covered, hoping to get another ten 
cents, {d) People who have been very hospitable, frequently after their 
neighborhood has become a summer resort, show kindness to strangers for 
pay only. 

Children who are working well in school are sometimes offered a valuable 
prize for the best work. Is the effect the same when the prize is money as 
when it is opportunity for further study ? 

What is the effect of offering a half holiday for good attendance ? What 
of offering a treat such as candy? 

Sometimes a child is induced to tell of the misdemeanors of others by 
threats of punishment or offers of reward, and in other cases the attempt is 
made to get a child to tell by showing him that the good of the school makes 
it necessary. What is the moral effect in the two cases? 

Bring up for discussion other cases of substituting or mixing of motives 
and the moral effects of the same. 

11. Illustrate the fact that ideals, only, cannot usually be depended upon 
to govern the actions of young children. 

12. Give instances in which natural results are best for children, and others 
in which authoritative punishment or reward is best. 

Give illustrations of temporary authority leading to self-control and of too 
long continued authority leading to arrest of development. 

13. Report from your own experience or observation changes in feeling 
and attitude toward moral questions early in the teens. 

14. Describe the results of experiments in self-government of which you 
have known, also the effects of having to bear responsibihty of any kind 
either at home or in school. 

15. Recall as many as you can of the moral ideals that you formed from 
the people around you or from reading. 

16. Give illustrations from experience or observation of the moral influ- 
ence of companions upon a child. 

17. Indicate some of the ways in which sentiments of honor, truthfulness, 
and kindness, or other sentiments, may be developed in a school. 



DEVELOPMENT OF INSTINCTS — REGULATIVE 223 

Suggestions for Reading 

On moral and religious instincts and their prominence at puberty, see 
Marshall, chaps, ix, x, and xiv ; Chadbourne, chaps, xi and xii ; Ribot, 
pp. 289-377; Leuba, Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. VII, pp. 309-385; Coe, 
Trans. III. Ch. S. Soc, Vol. Ill, pp. 97-108; also "The Spiritual 
Life," Gale, Jr. Ch. and Ad., September, 1900, pp. 17-25 ; Jr. Ch. and 
Ad., January, 1902 ; Starbuck, Psychology of Religion, or Am. Jr. 
Psych., Vol. VIII, pp. 268-314; James, Varieties of Religious Experi- 
ences; Dawson, Ped. Sem., Vol. IV, pp. 221-258, and Am. Jr. Psych. ^ 
Vol. XI, pp. 181-224; Stanley, Psych. Rev., Vol. V, pp. 254-278. 

On early moral and religious development and training, see Compayre, 
Vol. II, chaps. V and vi ; Harrison, chaps, iv, vi, vii, and viii ; Wiggin, 
pp. 141-165 ; Sully, chaps, vii and viii; Chrisman, Ch. S. Mo., Vol. 
Ill, pp. 516-528 ; Van Liew, N. E. A., 1899, pp. 551-559 ; also Malle- 
son, Winterburn, and Proudfoot. 

For investigations of children's moral and religious ideas, see Barnes, Studies 
in Ed., Vol. I, pp. 270-271, 299-300, 332-337, 344-351, 366-367, Vol. 
II, pp. 62-70, 203-217, 283-307, 308-313, 323-337 ; Schallenberg, Ped. 
Sem., Vol. Ill, pp. 87-96; A. G. Spencer, Century Mag., Vol. XIX, 
p. 238 ; Barnes, Ed., Vol. XVIII, pp. 387-395, Vol. XIX, pp. 72-75 ; 
Osborn, Ed. Rev., Vol. VIII, pp. 143-146 ; Sears, Ped. Sem., Vol. VI, 
pp. 159-187; Street, Ped. Sem., Vol. V, pp. 5-40; Brockman, Ped. 
Sem., Vol. IX, pp. 255-273; Swift, Ped. Sem., Vol. VIII, pp. 65-91; 
Sudborough, N. W. Mo., Vol. VIII, pp. 327-333; Hall, Am. Jr. 
Psych., Vol. Ill, pp. 59-70; Kline, Ped. Sem., Vol. X, pp. 239-266. 

On moral and religious training, see Adler, Moral Instruction of Children; 
Forbush, The Boy Problem; Koons, The Child's Religious Life; Hall, 
Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. Ill, pp. 59-70; Ped. Sem., Vol. II, pp. 72-89, 
Vol. VIII, pp. 439-469; Luckey, N. E. A., 1899, pp. 127-136; De 
Garmo, N. E. A., 1894, pp. 165-173; Dinsmore, N. W. Mo., Vol. X, 
pp. 74-80; Spencer, Education, chap, iii; White, School Management, 
chapter on " Punishments " ; Wolfe, N. W. Mo., Vol. VIII, pp. 431- 
435; Hinsdale, Studies in Education, chap. ii. 

See also Morrison, Juvenile fenders; Royce, " The Social Basis of Con- 
science," iV. E. A., 1898, pp. 196-204. 



224 



FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 





Later References 






Books 




Bailey 


Hall (i & 3) 


Schofif 


Bolton 


Holt, E. B. 


Sharp 


Breckenridge 


King (4) 


Shroeder 


Cabot 


Kirkpatrick (i, 3, & 4) 


Slattery 


Coe 


Koons 


St. John 


Dawson (i) 


McKeever 


Sutherland 


Dix 


Mumford 


Swift (2) 


Drummond 


Richardson and Ormand 


Tanner 


Gesell 







Articles 

Brown, Daisy D. Young People's Ideas of the Value of Bible Study. 

Fed. Sem., 1910, Vol. 17, pp. 370-386. 
Hall, G. S. Relation of the Church to Education. Fed. Sem., 1908, Vol. 

IS, pp. 186-196. 
Kline, L. W. A Study in Juvenile Ethics. Fed. Sem., 1903, Vol. 10, 

pp. 239-266. 
Marriman, J. J. The Children and Religion. Fed. Sem., 191 3, Vol. 20, 

pp. 229-235. 
Myers, Geo. E. Moral Training in the School. Fed. Sem., 1906, Vol. 13, 

pp. 409-460. 
St. John, Edward F. A Genetic Study of Veracity. Fed. Sem., 1908, 

Vol. 15, pp. 246-270. 
Ueda, T. The Psychology of Justice. Fed. Sem., 1912, Vol. 19, pp. 

297-349- 



CHAPTER XIV 

DEVELOPMENT OF INSTINCTS — VARIOUS RESULTANT 
INSTINCTS AND FEELINGS 

THE COLLECTING INSTINCT 

This instinct is clearly manifested in both animals and men. 
When food and materials for nests and homes are collected and 
used or stored for future use, the act is of advantage to the in- 
dividual, and often to the species, as a means of preserving the 
young. When, however, objects of all kinds are collected and 
hidden or stored and played with, as is the case with many kinds 
of animals, there appears to be nothing of immediate value 
gained by the act. It seems as if the usefulness of certain acts 
of collecting has led to an unspecialized tendency to collect 
objects of all kinds. 

In human beings the instinct is very strong, and as a result, 
not only have we museums of all kinds, but nearly every in- 
dividual has at least one collection of some sort. 

This instinct unites with other instincts in a way which makes 
it impossible to determine its actual strength. It is closely 
related to the instinct of ownership and to that of exercising 
personal power. The amassing of wealth, which is an indirect 
way of collecting food and shelter for self and descendants, is 
probably often due as much to the blind impulse to busy one's 
self in collecting, as to the desire for money and what it will buy. 
The instinct is often associated with the play instinct, since the 
objects collected are frequently an important source of amuse- 
ment. Curiosity not infrequently contributes to the impulse, 

Q 225 



226 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

as does also the tendency to construct. Competition with others 
greatly increases the activity. The aesthetic tendencies are also 
often gratified in the objects collected and their arrangement. 

In children the instinct is manifested to some extent in the 
second year, especially in connection with play, sticks, stones, 
etc., being collected and kept as playthings. It continues all 
through life, and varies not so much in intensity at different ages 
as in the objects with which it is concerned and the conscious 
motives with which it is associated. In children, especially 
when there is no conscious motive for the act, the impulse is 
extremely variable. Objects of a certain kind may be collected 
and guarded with the greatest eagerness, as if life depended upon 
their possession ; then in a few days, or perhaps a few hours, they 
may be abandoned, thrown away, or destroyed. The sight of 
some one else appropriating objects, or anything which suggests 
the idea of securing possession of objects, is sufficient to arouse 
the collecting impulse, while the awakening of another interest 
changes the form of the impulse or causes its disappearance for 
the time being ; yet entirely useless collections of glass, stones, 
etc., are sometimes preserved for years. 

When the instinct is associated with some other instinct, 
such as the individuaHstic, the competitive, the imitative, the 
aesthetic, or that of curiosity, the impulse manifested in a certain 
line in childhood may continue for months or years, or even all 
through life. Thus a passion for collecting may develop into 
love of money or even miserliness, or into love of winning in 
any kind of contest and the collecting of trophies, or into the 
pursuit of an artistic or a scientific career, with the collection of 
evidences of success. 

The elements which make collections, or objects in a collection, 
desirable are, according to the reminiscences of Barnes's pupils, 
variety, quantity, rarity, beauty, and personal association or 
ownership. The reasons given for making collections are emu- 



VARIOUS RESULTANT INSTINCTS AND FEELINGS 227 

lation, imitation, pleasure of ownership, and of classifying or 
arranging. 

The instinct has already been utilized to some extent in school, 
but there are undoubtedly much more extensive and fitting 
uses yet to be made of it. The educational value is not so much 
in what is collected as in the physical, mental, and volitional 
activity called forth directly or indirectly while collecting. In 
general, children desire many things, while older persons desire 
the rare ones which few other people can possess. 

THE CONSTRUCTIVE INSTINCT 

The general tendency to construct things is largely the out- 
growth of that form of the racial instinct which causes suit- 
able places to be prepared for the shelter and protection of the 
young. Some constructions, however, are means of promoting 
individual ends as well, such as obtaining food or shelter for self, 
e.g., webs by spiders, holes by ground hogs. In animals the 
tendency does not seem to be generalized, but is manifested only 
in constructions which are characteristic of and useful to the 
species. In man, however, there seems to be an impulse to con- 
struct, independently of any end to be gained. 

From the time the child begins to pile up sand or blocks, 
through the ages when boys construct tools and dig caves, and 
men design temples, bridges, business blocks, and balloons, the 
constructive instinct is prominent. There is a peculiar pleasure 
accompanying these acts of construction, perhaps because one 
feels and perceives in concrete form the evidence of his power 
to do, to modify and change. 

The destructive tendency is probably only a modified form of 
the constructive, for it gives the same evidence of power to 
change. It is often more attractive to children because destruc- 
tive changes can be produced so much more quickly and easily 
than constructive ones. The destruction or displacement of 



228 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

something is also often merely a preliminary to the construction 
of something else from the parts or fragments that are being made. 
Children frequently break or take apart complex toys and make 
some crude thing in which they take great pleasure. 

The constructive instinct naturally associates itself with the 
adaptive instincts of imitation, play, and curiosity, with the 
aesthetic and expressive instincts, and sometimes with various 
other instincts and motives. 

Imitation and suggestion are the natural stimuli to this im- 
pulse. Like other forms of play, it needs to be spontaneous and 
free. Definite directions as to what shall be constructed, and 
how it shall be done, often e£fectively inhibit the constructive 
impulse. 

The order of development of the impulse is from the more con- 
crete and tangible to the more immaterial and symbolic. Making 
things, therefore, naturally precedes making pictures of them or 
compositions about them. In general, the manual element 
is naturally most prominent in early constructions, and the 
artistic and literary in later. At present, children are often 
guided and drilled in artistic and literary creation before they 
care much about that phase of construction, and are not given 
sufficient opportunity for manual work till many of them have 
partially or wholly lost their interest in making things. 

THE AESTHETIC INSTINCT 

The biological value of this instinct is not easily discerned. 
It is most satisfactorily explained as a resultant tendency rather 
than as a primarily useful instinct. The idea that insects select 
flowers which are beautiful for fertilization, and hence such flowers 
survive, and that animals select the mates most beautiful in 
appearance and action, and thus promote the development of 
the beautiful, leads to the rather absurd conclusion that all the 
beauty of organic life is the result of the good taste of the lower 



VARIOUS RESULTANT INSTINCTS AND FEELINGS 229 

animals. The more reasonable view is, that the qualities of 
plants or animals which attract insects and mates, or favor 
avoidance of enemies, are preserved by natural selection. In 
other words, the useful survives. It becomes agreeable according 
to the general law of accommodation by which every organ of 
every animal comes to respond in the most favorable way to 
every impression that is often repeated. Leaves and grass are 
green because the elements favoring plant growth give them that 
color, and green is pleasant and restful to the eye because in the 
course of ages the eye has become accommodated to green. For 
a similar reason we find grace and beauty in nearly all forms 
of life and action. 

Although the aesthetic reaction is in a large measure playful 
(the product of the excess of life above what is necessary to its 
maintenance), yet it is always closely associated with the useful 
from which it has evolved. Anything suggesting want of equi- 
librium or strength fails to appear beautiful because such ob- 
jects have not been useful, and hence not numerous and per- 
manent enough to result in favorable accommodation to them. 
Symmetry and a position in accordance with the law of gravity 
are therefore universal elements of beauty. For similar reasons 
harmony of parts and unity of the whole is a universal requisite 
of beautiful objects. The elements of beauty which are asso- 
ciated with universal laws of existence and permanency are 
therefore responded to in approximately the same way by all 
nations of people. 

Those associated with local characteristics and customs, on 
the other hand, are responded to differently by each nation, 
tribe, and community. For example, the peculiar blues of 
Scandinavian art are not so much enjoyed by people of other 
countries where they are rarely found in nature. Our music, 
also, is as painful to the Chinese as is theirs to us. 

Recent experiences make wonderful changes in the aesthetic 



230 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

reaction. Even in the same community the beautiful sleeves or 
hats of last year are ''horrid" a year or two later. What is 
common for temporary reasons, as well as what is common be- 
cause constantly useful, comes to be regarded as beautiful; 
hence, beauty is in part a matter of style or custom. 

Since the experience of each individual differs from that of 
every other, each person has also, in a measure, his own standards 
of beauty. Purely personal associations aroused by an object 
sometimes have more influence upon one's judgment than the 
more universal and fundamental elements of beauty. 

Standards of beauty are, therefore, partially determined by 
universal laws of use and beauty, partially by local surroundings, 
customs, and style, and partially by individual peculiarities of 
temperament, experience, and training. 

The aesthetic instinct is closely connected with several other 
instincts. Whenever certain forms of the play impulse are 
clearly marked, either in animals or children, there is some 
ground for believing that there is a crude form of aesthetic appre- 
ciation. This is especially true of all playful exhibitions by ani- 
mals, of form, color, movement, and voice, by which they and 
their companions, especially mates, are pleased. Such acts of 
showing off and of adornment are common among all savage 
tribes and are very characteristic of children. Their real pur- 
pose is, however, to attract attention, and it is not certain that 
any animal below man has aesthetic feelings. 

The aesthetic impulse is thus a form of the play instinct and 
closely associated with the racial and social instincts. It is not 
less closely associated with the rhythmic, dramatic, constructive, 
and expressive instincts. The joy of doing always culminates 
in the pleasure of contemplating the beauty of the product or 
performance. The impulse to express mental states also at- 
tains its highest form when the expression itself is beautiful. 

The development of the aesthetic impulse is greatly influenced 



VARIOUS RESULTANT INSTINCTS AND FEELINGS 231 

by the instincts with which it is associated. It cannot, therefore, 
reach its deepest and broadest development until after puberty. 
In early childhood the aesthetic sense is largely sensory; color, 
sound, and rhythm being the most effective stimuli. Beauty of 
form, harmony, and unity become more important as the mind 
develops and standards are formed by habit and training. 
Colored pictures and those with subjects interesting to young 
children therefore appeal more to them than the most artistic 
black-and-white pictures. 

Vocal skill and auditory appreciation develop much earlier 
than manual skill and visual appreciation (except in the case of 
colors). Children enjoy rhythm, melody, and the act of singing 
much sooner than they appreciate symmetry of form, unity of 
design, and the power to make beautiful forms. Lancaster's in- 
vestigations show that, on the average, great musicians achieved 
their first success ^t nine or ten years of age ; while artists have 
not obtained corresponding success until about eighteen years 
of age. 

That the aesthetic instinct should be developed is admitted 
by all, but there is difference of opinion as to the best method. 
Should only the highest art be shown children, even though 
they do not appreciate it, or should they be allowed to revel in 
bright colors and sharp contrasts until their aesthetic appreciation 
becomes less crude ? It is of no use to place before them high 
art which excites no interest or feeling, and, on the other hand, 
continued association with crude and imperfect art develops 
wrong standards. Nature gives the best models because uni- 
versal laws of beauty are shown in every flower, leaf, and twig. 
Other models for children should be chosen, first, because they 
exemplify fundamental laws of beauty; and, second, because 
they have qualities which will attract the attention and arouse 
the interest of children. Great works of art which appeal to 
children because of their color, or the subject represented, will 



232 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

mold their taste ; while those that fail to attract their attention 
will have little or no influence. Care should, therefore, be taken 
that pictures in the schoolroom are both artistic and interesting. 

THE MIGRATORY INSTINCT 

In its primitive form this instinct is probably nothing more 
than a manifestation of the general tendency to act so as to in- 
crease or get more of a favorable stimulus already received. At 
a certain season of the year, salmon, for example, experience 
bodily changes preparatory to the production of young, which 
cause them to move so as to get into an environment more and 
more favorable to their present bodily state as regards tempera- 
ture, chemical condition, etc. The result is that after many 
days they find themselves in the fresh water where they were 
hatched years before. 

This is the fundamental form of the instinct which makes 
every animal, including man, experience an impulse to migrate 
when, through changes in himself or his surroundings, he is out 
of harmony with his environment. The impulse is felt in the 
spring by nearly every one in a greater or less degree. Some 
persons, such as tramps, pioneers, and travelers, never become 
so firmly settled and accommodated to any environment that 
they do not yield to the migratory impulse. 

Children of two or three years nearly always have a period of 
running away. Later, the impulse to play truant from school 
or to leave home often comes, and is frequently acted upon with- 
out conscious purpose or reason. The impulse is especially 
strong during the period of adolescent changes, and if there is 
not actual running away, there is at least a strong desire to travel. 
Special causes of discontent often bring on or increase such 
impulses. 



VARIOUS RESULTANT INSTINCTS AND FEELINGS 233 
THE RHYTHMIC INSTINCT 

/■ The universal tendency to rhythm in action may be considered 
under the head of instinctive tendencies, though it is really an 
organic and automatic tendency even more fundamental than 
an instinct. 

Rhythm is a marked feature in physical phenomena as well as 
in plant and animal life. In man, all bodily processes are rhyth- 
mic, and all repeated movement tends to take a rhythmic form. 
It is not surprising, therefore, that consciousness is rhythmic. 
There are rhythms of attention, activity is followed by rest, and 
one emotional extreme is succeeded by its opposite. Conscious- 
ness even makes rhythmic what is objectively without rhythm, 
as when continuous and uniform beats of a metronome are 
heard as rhythmic beats. 

The more instinctive form of the rhythmic tendency is shown 
in the impulse to produce rhythmic movements and sounds, and 
to appreciate or respond in a particular way when such rhythms 
are produced by others. Both of these tendencies are manifested 
in the first few months of infancy. '^ The tendency remains much 
the same all through life except that the rhythms become more 
complex. The rhythm of conversation, music, and poetry is 
often appreciated long before the other elements of which they 
are composed. Mother Goose rhymes and some of Tennyson's 
finest poems are enjoyed by children for exactly the same reason, 
i.e.^ their rhythmic character. Many games also owe their 
charm to the opportunity they afford for rhythmic sounds and 
movements, 

RELATION OF INSTINCTIVE ACTIONS TO FEELINGS 

In general, an instinct, as Professor James says, is a tendency 
to act ; and an emotion, a tendency to feel. Since most instinc- 
tive actions are at least occasionally accompanied by feeling, 



234 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

there is an emotion for every instinct. Every emotion has also 
its appropriate bodily expression which varies somewhat from the 
corresponding instinctive action. 

The tense muscles, labored breathing, pale or flushed face, 
quickened heartbeat, and irregular movements of anger are only 
partially reproduced in the purely instinctive movements of 
fighting. The act of fighting is exhilarating and pleasurable, 
while anger, especially when it takes the form of irritation and 
hate, is rather painful and depressing. Anger appears whenever 
an action of any kind is interfered with, as is clearly shown in 
young babies. The resulting irregular, varied, and vigorous 
movements often overcome the interference, and fighting move- 
ments are probably the result of the selection of the most favor- 
able of these. When the stimulus to action continues without 
the obstruction being removed, irritation or sullenness and 
smoldering hate of the cause of the interference are likely to 
result. 

Jealousy and envy are produced by the sight of another 
enjoying the pleasure given by a loved being or a desired object. 
These emotions seem to be experienced by nearly all species of 
animals and are usually especially prominent in children. The 
tendency to them remains strong all through life, but is sup- 
pressed and covered up by training and social convention. 

Humorous emotions are, in nature and cause, the opposite of 
those of anger. Instead of interference with activity, when the 
sense of humor is aroused, there is a sudden opening of a channel 
of free activity. Any sudden stimulus giving rise to playful 
movements is likely to arouse the emotion in young children 
and perhaps in animals. The delight of children in "peek-a-boo," 
and in all play in which there is a sudden transformation which 
may be accompanied by laughter and sudden movements of 
head or hands, running, etc., indicates the early rise of this 
emotion. When a child of less than two suddenly turns his head 



VARIOUS RESULTANT INSTINCTS AND FEELINGS 235 

away from the one he has offered to kiss, and runs off laughing, 
the presence of humor is unmistakable. In general, humor is 
the result of a more or less serious form of physical or mental 
reaction being suddenly converted into a playful form. 
Naturally, therefore, humor and pathos are often associated, 
and ''there is only a step from laughter to tears." Humor is a 
permanent emotion, as play is a permanent instinct, but it is 
stronger in childhood than in old age. The stimuli to humor, 
like the forms of playful activity, vary greatly with age. The 
child's humor is often nonsense to the adult, and the adult's, 
incomprehensible to the child ; but whenever they can play to- 
gether they meet on a common basis. 

Humor should be regarded as belonging to the same class as 
the aesthetic instinct, and the same attention given to cultivating 
and refining it. A keen sense of humor is one of the essentials 
of a good teacher and she does well to encourage pupils to see 
the humorous in Hfe and in literature. 

The tendency to tease is an instinctive form of humor which 
needs more careful study by educators. In general it leads to a 
lower form of humor and is often the source of many quarrels 
which the parent or teacher may have to settle. On the other 
hand, teasing has a value in that the fear of being laughed at 
is one of the strongest social and even moral forces in every social 
circle. 

The emotions of awe and reverence are accompaniments of re- 
actions which involve little or no movement because there is no 
movement suited to the stimulus which arouses them. The 
object arousing the emotion is impressive but not exciting, and 
there is no fitting motor response except the more or less com- 
plete inhibition of movement. It is related to that form of 
the fear instinct in which safety is gained by keeping still ; but 
the object is less definitely fearful, and is attractive rather than 
repulsive. 



236 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

RELATION OF FUNDAMENTAL STIMULI TO FEELINGS 

There are many kinds of stimuli which have affected the 
development of intelligent action in animals and men from the 
earliest ages. Heat and cold, fire and frost, light and darkness, 
the clouds and heavenly bodies, water and earth, trees and 
flowers, birds and animals, heights and depths, open and closed 
spaces, feathers and fur, eyes and teeth, etc., are some of the 
more or less constant stimuli which mold mind in the race and 
the individual. A large amount of data regarding the feelings 
and ideas excited by these phenomena of nature has been col- 
lected from folklore, reminiscences of adults, and observation 
of children, under the direction of Dr. Hall. This material is 
very interesting and suggestive, but exceedingly diverse. This 
is probably to be expected, since the favorable or unfavorable 
character of these phenomena varies with the species concerned 
and with various conditions, surroundings, and experiences of 
species and individuals. Thus water or fire may be fascinating 
to one, terrifying to another, and tranquilizing to a third, or each 
of these to the same individual, when appearing in special forms. 

It is evident also from descriptions, and from well-known 
laws of association, that many of the emotions excited by these 
stimuli are the result of early experiences of the individual with 
such stimuli, or of the influence of the words and actions of adults 
in connection with them. It is utterly impossible from the 
studies thus far made to say how far these mental states or 
** psychoses" are due to hereditary racial experiences and how 
far to individual experiences in connection with social heredity. 

The nature and development of the emotional life of man 
can never be understood till we have learned more regarding 
the universal effects of instinctive actions, and of the more 
constant and universal stimuli, upon mental activity and feeling. 
Many years must elapse before such knowledge can be obtained. 



VARIOUS RESULTANT INSTINCTS AND FEELINGS 237 

Exercises for Students 

1. Report full details of one or more collections which you have made. 
Give some specific illustrations of the way in which the collecting instinct 
may be utilized in education. Are ready-made collections of as much value 
as pupil-made collections? Is it of any advantage to children to make 
scrapbooks? 

2. A boy of four worked a considerable part of two days constructing a 
tool box out of laths, and a very restless Httle girl worked steadily for two 
hours sewing on a dress for her doll. What does this indicate? Give a 
number of illustrations of ways in which the constructive instinct may be 
utilized in the different grades in the school. 

3. Report instances where children have been greatly affected by what 
they regarded as very beautiful or ugly. Mention various ways in which 
the aesthetic impulse may be cultivated directly and indirectly in school. 

4. Give illustrations from your own experience or observation of the 
strength of the migratory instinct. May mental changes be made to take the 
place of physical ones, e.g., imaginary journeys for real ones? Illustrate. 

5. Give illustrations showing the strength of the rhythmic tendency, and 
show how it may be utilized in school. 

6. Give illustrations of the instinctive basis of various emotions. 

7. Reminiscences and observations regarding the influence of light and 
darkness, and perhaps of other stimuli, should be reported. 

Suggestions for Reading 

On children's collections, read Barnes, Studies, Vol. I, pp. 144-146 ; C. Frear 

Burk, Fed. Sem., Vol. VII, pp. 179-207 ; Groszmann, Jr. Ch. and Ad.y 

April, 1901, pp. 377-385. 
On the constructive instinct, see Small, Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. XI, pp. 152- 

153 ; and on its use in education, see Dewey, The School and Society. 
On aesthetic feeHngs, see Ribot, pp. 328-367 ; Scott, " Sex and Art," Am. 

Jr. Psych., Vol. VII, pp. 153-226; Harris, N. E. A., 1897, pp. 330- 

338; Chamberlain, pp. 173-189; Sully, chap, ix; Brown, "Art in 

Education," N. E. A., 1899, pp. 11 2-1 21. 
On migratory impulses, see Kline, Ped. Sem., Vol. V, pp. 381-420; Am. Jr. 

Psych., Vol. X, pp. 1-81 ; Dinsmore, N. W. Mo., Vol. IX, pp. 183-186 ; 

Brooks, Pop. Sci. Mo., Vol. LII, pp. 784-798. 
On rhythm, see Bolton, Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. VI, pp. 145-238; Sears, Ped. 

Sem., Vol. VIII, pp. 3-34 ; Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. XIII, pp. 28-61. 



238 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

On various impulses and feelings, see Burk, " Teasing and Bullying," Ped. 
Sem., Vol. IV, pp. 336-371; Bolton, "Hydro-Psychoses," Am. Jr. 
Psych., Vol. X, pp. 169-227 ; Hall, " Tickling and Laughing," Am. 
Jr. Psych., Vol. IX, pp. 1-41 ; Hall and Smith, " Reactions to Light and 
Darkness," Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. XIV, pp. 21-83; HaU and Brown, 
" Fire, Heat, Frost, and Cold," Ped. Sem., Vol. X, pp. 27-85 ; Hall 
and WalUn, " How Children and Youth Think about Clouds," Ped. 
Sem., Vol. IX, pp. 460-506 ; ElHs, " Fetichism in Children," Ped. 
Sem., Vol. IX, pp. 205-220; France, " Gambling Impulse," Am. Jr. 
Psych., Vol. XIII, pp. 364-407; Chamberlain, chap, vii; Small, 
"Methods of Manifesting the Instinct for Certainty," Ped. Sem., Vol. V, 
PP- 313-380; Phillips, " The Teaching Instinct," Ped. Sem., Vol. VI, 
pp. 188-245 ; Arnett, " Origin and Development of Home and Love of 
Home," Ped. Sem., Vol. IX, pp. 324-365 ; Lindley and Partridge, " Some 
Mental Automatisms," Ped. Sem., Vol. V, pp. 41-60. 

Later References 

Books 

Bolton McNamara Sully 

Gesell Oeblen Tanner 

Kent Sandiford Thorndike (8) 

Articles 

Hall, G. S. The Psychology of Music and the Light It Throws upon 
Musical Education. Ped. Sem., 1908, Vol. 15, pp. 358-364. 

Reaney, M. Jane. The Psychology of the Boy Scout Movement. Ped. 
Sem., 1914, Vol. 21, pp. 406-411. 

Wheeler, W. M. Vestigial Instincts in Insects and Other Animals. Am. 
Jr. of Psych., 1908, Vol. 19, pp. 1-13. 



CHAPTER XV 

DEVELOPMENT OF INSTINCTS — THE EXPRESSIVE 
INSTINCT 

ORIGIN, NATUEJE, AND FORMS 

This instinct belongs with the resultant and miscellaneous 
group because it owes its origin to various other instincts. Ex- 
pression is a means of frightening enemies and communicating 
with friends regarding food and danger; consequently it has 
been developed in the attainment of individual, racial, and 
social ends. 

In the lowest animals, expression, so far as there is any, is 
accomplished by means of feelers or antennae (notably in the 
case of ants), but in higher animals the chief means are sounds. 
Most mammals and birds have from two or three to a dozen 
different calls which are appropriately responded to by others 
of their species. In man, the expressive instinct reaches its 
highest development because of his social nature and the per- 
fectness of his vocal organs, and also because of the complexity 
of the mental states to be expressed. Instinctive emotional 
expression and expressive gestures are so effective that savages, 
without a word of artificial language in common, can communi- 
cate more accurately than any of the lower animals. 

Man is not limited, however, to the language of natural signs. 
Every race has formed an artificial language of arbitrary symbols. 
Animals, on the other hand, have no artificial speech, and only 
a few of them can use such language even in an imitative way. 
In man, the need for communication is so great, and the instinct 

239 



240 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

of expression so strong, that children who had never heard any 
language would probably form a crude one suited to their needs. 
The fact that children who hear but little spoken language, 
sometimes, as Horatio Hale has shown, form a language of their 
own, is evidence of this. Again, children of nearly the same 
age, who play together a great deal, sometimes form a language 
of their own in spite of the fact that they are surrounded by other 
persons who are talking a good deal of the time. Many children 
also invent new words, notwithstanding the fact that they con- 
tinually hear a fully developed language. 

Since any means by which the mental state of one being is 
expressed to another is a language in the broad meaning of the 
term, words may be tactual, motor, or visual, as well as auditory ; 
and ideas may be expressed in the permanent form of some 
constructed object or representation, as well as temporarily by 
sound, touch, or gesture. Constructive activities of all kinds 
are important forms of expression ; but we shall take space to 
discuss in detail only the forms in most general use ; namely, 
(I) Auditory Symbols, (II) Visual Symbols, and (III) Drawings. 

I. Auditory Expression 

FACTORS CONCERNED 

The primitive form of the expressive instinct is shown by both 
animals and children in suggestive sounds and movements which 
are responded to by companions in appropriate ways. These 
are more numerous and well developed in animals living in groups 
than in others, although some are useful to all those animals 
which care for their young and for those that seek mates. The 
crow, which is much of the time with others, probably has as 
many as a dozen expressive calls. Monkeys, which always live 
in groups, have, according to Garner, many more. Children 
add considerably to their native endowments in this respect 



THE EXPRESSIVE INSTINCT 



241 



before they learn an artificial language, and make a good deal 
of use of this natural language in learning to understand and use 
an artificial one. 

Besides their special endowments in this direction children 
have a more general instinctive tendency to expression which is 
based perhaps in part upon a tendency to respond to all stimuli 
by movement of some kind and by a tendency for mental excite- 
ment of all kinds to find some motor outlet. This results in 
similar responses to similar objects and states and these responses 
become expressive. The sound "bow-wow'' comes to mean any 
dog, just as certain movements indicate anger or fear. The 
usefulness of the expressive instinct is not in the movements 
themselves, but in the responses they cause companions to 
make. 

The first factor in modifying and developing the expressive 
instincts is play. Before learning to talk, and sometimes after- 
ward, children frequently use their vocal organs as playthings, 
and thus develop their vocal centers in preparation for the pro- 
duction of any sound they may subsequently have occasion to 
use. Later, children often combine and substitute words in 
various ways, as a matter of amusement. 

The second most important factor in producing a vocal 
language is the imitative instinct. This leads to sounds and 
gestures being responded to by similar sounds and gestures. 
These naturally arouse corresponding ideas in other persons, 
and are therefore often repeated and learned. They are then 
used for other similar stimuli, and thus they become words and 
a means of classification of objects. The use of "tree" for cer- 
tain kinds of objects, "flower" for others, and "animal" for 
others causes the common characteristics of each class to be 
noted more carefully, and the general notion or concept of it is 
thus perfected. Other symbols are used to indicate sensations 
and qualities as well as objects and acts. Often they are also 



242 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

applied to analogous and associated objects. Not only knives 
are "sharp," but pains, vinegar, and wits. ''Kitty" meant 
to M. not only the animal, but anything that was soft to the 
touch, and finally anything that was pleasing. 

In the case of a child surrounded by people speaking a vocal 
language, imitation is the most important factor in his language 
development. The child has continually before him examples 
of persons responding to stimuli by words only, and the imitative 
instinct leads him to respond in the same way. He is much 
more likely to imitate a response than an original stimulus, 
though sometimes the child who has not been taught the word 
''dog," for example, will say "bow-wow" when he perceives 
or pictures the animal; but with equal opportunity to hear a 
dog bark and hear the word ^'dog," he is likely to adopt the 
sound used by others. For this reason each child, no matter 
what his nationaHty, learns the language he hears spoken. Deaf 
children are usually slow in learning visual language as well as 
auditory ; but not so much because hearing is necessary to lan- 
guage learning as because they are deprived for many years of 
the chance to imitate any artificial language. 

Necessity, which really means action for one's good, or conform- 
ity to the fundamental individuaUstic instinct, is another impor- 
tant factor in the individual language development, as it was 
perhaps the chief one in the development of language by the race. 
The child who learns to understand words of warning or approval 
succeeds in avoiding various painful stimuli and in securing 
pleasant ones. Similar results come from abihty to indicate 
hunger, and objects of fear or desire. If a child is helped to 
what he wants in response to the language of natural signs, he is 
often slow in using conventional language ; hence, it is sometimes 
well for parents to refuse to understand the wants of children 
old enough to talk until they try to express them in words. 

Another more obscure but very important factor in acquiring 



THE EXPRESSIVE INSTINCT 243 

language is the instinctive social tendency to wish for sympathy 
and approval. This is also really a phase of the expressive 
instinct itself. Children seem especially desirous that others 
shall hear, see, and feel what they do, as well as that they them- 
selves shall have the same experiences that others are getting. 
Language is one means of sharing experiences ; hence, it is used 
a great deal for that purpose. Children often repeat over and 
over a statement to make sure it is comprehended, and cease 
only when they receive assurance by word or act that they have 
been understood. Language is the chief medium by which the 
wider social life is brought to the individual soul, and by which 
he infuses his own mental states into the thoughts and feelings 
of the group to which he belongs. All impulses to communicate, 
whether to engage in the most trivial gossip or to give expression 
to the profoundest feelings and thoughts, are the result of the 
social tendency to share one's experiences with others of his kind. 

STAGES OF LEARNING ORAL LANGUAGE 

Instinctive stage 

The instinctive language which man has in common with the 
lower animals is that of emotional expression. He begins Hfe 
with a cry and often ends it with a moan. This language of 
natural signs is not learned by the individual, but is instinctively 
understood and used by all races. 

At first the child has no cry except for discomfort, and little 
or no variation in its cry to express different kinds. Soon, how- 
ever, the cry of anger or the wail of disappointment is differen- 
tiated from the cry of physical pain. At about the same time, 
or a little later, other cries, screams, gurglings, and cooings, sug- 
gestive of energy or pleasurable contentment, are made. Dif- 
ferentiation in vocal expression probably proceeds more rapidly 
than differentiation of the different forms of emotion, since 



244 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

emotions are probably, in part at least, the result of what is 
called their expression. 

Children only a few months old are sensitive to emotional 
expression of others, and may be soothed, irritated, or depressed 
by appropriate tones of voice. Vocal laughter, however, is 
sometimes rather late in appearing in children and correspond- 
ingly late in being understood. One little girl was well along 
in her second year before she laughed aloud, and until she herself 
laughed was disturbed and even frightened by the sudden laugh- 
ter of others. 

Besides the purely instinctive language of emotional expression, 
there is usually developed in the second year a more intellectual 
language, which prepares the way for purely symbolic language. 
The child learns to vary the tone of his grunts and squeals so as to 
express fear, surprise, question, desire, satisfaction, and assent, 
and he associates gesture with these variations in tone. Soon, 
therefore, he can express, to one quick to interpret, nearly all 
his feelings, ideas, and wishes. All through life, tone of voice, 
emphasis, inflection, and gesture continue to be effective aids in 
expression, and important means of interpretation, especially 
of whatever concerns the emotions. 

Since the child's life is more emotional than intellectual, this 
form of language is peculiarly appropriate in communicating 
with him. After he begins learning artificial language, the 
instinctive language of tone and gesture remains an important 
means of communication, and an effective aid in interpreting 
what is heard. A child may be commended in tones that will 
make him cry, or condemned in accents that will cause him to 
smile with pleasure. 

Playful and imitative stage 

This stage of language learning does not take the place of the 
preceding stage, but is added to it. Beginning in the second 



THE EXPRESSIVE INSTINCT 



245 



quarter of the first year, it is usually prominent for from one to 
several years. In the second and third quarters of the first 
year, the vocal organs of a child are his most important play- 
things. During this period of babbling a child may make 
nearly every sound in the language. 

In the last quarter of his first year, babbling often gives place 
to imitation, and instead of repeating chance sounds over and 
over, the child reproduces nearly every sound that he hears. 
Sometimes this is done almost automatically and with phono- 
graphic exactness. In other instances the imitations seem to 
be more voluntary from the first, since the child keeps trying 
to utter a word, with varying success, until he gets tired or suc- 
ceeds in speaking it satisfactorily to himself. 

Sometimes this imitative stage is almost, if not entirely omitted, 
as was the case with M. The ^'da da," or purely playful use of 
language, was very inconspicuous in C. One or more phases of 
language learning are, therefore, sometimes omitted entirely or 
subordinated tp others. 

Quite frequently the child imitates tone, inflection, and rhythm 
before attempting to articulate separate words. Sometimes so 
perfectly is this done that a person in another room is led to 
believe that a conversation is being carried on. Evidently in 
such cases, tone and rhythm are most impressive to the child, 
and the motor adjustments for their imitation most easily made. 

Word-learning stage 

As soon as a child begins to utter sounds for some other pur- 
pose than the mere making of them, the stage of word learning 
proper is introduced. Frequently the playful and imitative ut- 
terance of words is intermingled with their use for a purpose, 
in a way that is rather puzzling to adults. This word-learning 
stage may begin in the first year, but is not usually very 
marked till the last half of the second year. 



246 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

Usually, children understand words before they speak them ; 
but in cases where the imitative stage is marked, many words 
are uttered before their meaning is known. The meaning of 
words appHed to objects and acts is learned by hearing them in 
connection with the perception of object or act ; yet even these 
words are understood not so much by their sound as by means 
of the circumstances and the gesture or glance of the eye which 
accompany their utterance. It is therefore difhcult, before a 
child begins to talk, to tell what words he really knows. He is 
often greatly puzzled by a familiar word uttered without the 
usual suggestive conditions, or, if they are present, some other 
word may have the same effect as the right one. A child who 
had often been told to ''He down" when she sat up after being 
put to bed, would lie down if the words " sit up " were substituted, 
but uttered in the usual tone of voice and with the usual glance. 
. The child is always liable to associate a word with a different 
characteristic from the one intended. To one little girl, "chair" 
meant not so much the article of furniture as the act of sitting, 
and to another, "quack" meant not only a duck, but the water 
in which it was seen. 

Pronunciation of words which require very accurate adjust- 
ment of muscles is a difficult task in the early stages of word 
learning. The power to understand words is usually more 
quickly gained than the power to control the vocal apparatus. 
Some children do not try to use words difficult of pronunciation 
till long after the meaning is perfectly familiar to them. Thus 
M. refrained from saying "grandma" for about a year after she 
knew the word. Most children, however, are not often deterred 
from trying to use words by inability to pronounce them cor- 
rectly. 

The question of pronunciation is simply one form of the general 
problem of how voluntary motions are acquired. Some sounds, 
and especially some combinations of sounds, are difficult of utter- 



THE EXPRESSIVE INSTINCT 247 

ance for adults as well as for children ; hence, it is not easy to 
separate the childish difficulties from other difficulties of the 
language. A study of the first sound of all the words used by 
children will show that words beginning with certain sounds, 
such as th or r, are not so well represented as those beginning 
with other sounds, such as / and h. This may be interpreted as 
showing that words beginning with difficult sounds are avoided. 
To mean anything, however, the prominence of those sounds in 
adult language must be considered. A study of the sounds 
mispronounced, especially of those at the beginning of words, 
and of sounds substituted for those presumably more difficult 
of pronunciation, therefore, may be more significant. The 
difficulties, however, of getting accurate records of children's 
pronunciations (many of which are intermediate between sounds 
recognized as elementary by adults) are so great that one does 
not feel sure of the data. The errors and substitutions change 
also with age, and vary greatly with individuals. Presumably 
there is some law of variation with age corresponding to the 
natural order in which the centers controlling the vocal appara- 
tus develop, though the course of development must be greatly 
modified by individual training and experience. Common ob- 
servation indicates that this order is from large, comparatively 
free, to finer and more definitely controlled movements involving 
accurate coordination of the several parts of the vocal apparatus. 

The fact that sounds are difficult not merely in themselves, 
but according to the sounds with which they are associated, 
makes the question of the natural order of development an ex- 
ceedingly complex one. 

Habit and the relation of one center to another also modify 
the natural order, if there be one, to such an extent that its 
determination is very difficult. As soon as a new word is learned 
there is a tendency to assimilate other words to it; hence, the 
pronunciation of any word is likely to be modified by some other 



248 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

word which has recently been learned or often pronounced. Thus 
Mrs. Moore's boy, who used "ama" for ''grandma," used ''appa" 
for ''papa," and after learning ".ba ba" for "baby," changed 
to "pa ba," and after using "be be" for "baby," to "pape," and 
then finally to "papa." 

Again, pronunciation is a matter of auditory perception and 
memory as well as of motor development. As a consequence, 
words are often mispronounced because the child does not dis- 
criminate sounds accurately, and still more often, because he 
discriminates sounds just as they are pronounced by adults, 
instead of as they should be. Most adults slur certain sounds, 
and the child naturally reproduces only the accentuated portion 
of the words he hears, or fills out the word with sounds already 
familiar to him. For example, a child who had been singing a 
famihar hymn suddenly stopped, and said, "What is a conse- 
crated cross-eyed bear, anyway?" The first or last or most 
impressive syllable only of a long word is often used because it 
is most noticed and best remembered. 

The rate at which children overcome the difficulties in the 
way of learning to understand and pronounce words becomes 
more, rather than less marvelous as it is studied. Records of 
children's vocabularies, which have multiplied greatly within 
the last few years, show that children of two or three years 
actually use more words than adults were formerly supposed to 
use. From thirty to a hundred new words a month is not an 
unusual rate of learning after the acquisition of language fairly 
begins. 

Children rarely learn to walk and to talk at the same time. 
When, as is usual, walking precedes talking, the language-learn- 
ing stage is not generally marked till the last half of the second 
year. At two years of age a child's vocabulary may not exceed 
a score of words ; but is likely to number from two to four hun- 
dred, and may reach the surprising figure of ten or fifteen hundred. 



THE EXPRESSIVE INSTINCT 249 

The rate of acquiring words between two and four years of age 
varies with the degree of interest in learning as compared with 
interest in combining words already known, and with the waxing 
and waning of interest in other forms of motor activity, such as 
walking or building with blocks. The child's vocabulary may 
therefore increase very rapidly for a month or two ; then remain 
almost the same for a time, while facility in the use of the new 
words is gained, or while interest is temporarily occupied with 
objects and acts, rather than their names and descriptions. 

As to the kind of words most learned by children, close study 
shows that the supposition that nouns especially appeal to them 
is wholly wrong. At two years of age the proportion of nouns 
in children's vocabularies is about the same as in the language, 
viz., 60 per cent; but the proportion of verbs is about 20 per 
cent, or nearly twice what it is in the language. Adverbs are 
also relatively more numerous than adjectives. These facts 
harmonize with other studies, showing that children are more 
interested in actions than in things. Adjectives and verbs are 
often learned first, yet nouns seem to predominate during the 
first months of speaking, when the per cent may be 70 or 80. 
In reality, however, the noun idea is not so prominent as this, 
for words that in adult language are nouns, are to the child verbs, 
or else the distinction is not yet made. For instance, M. used 
*'bed" in the sense of lie down, just as we use '^ dress" to mean 
the act as well as the object. Prepositions also are at first for 
the child nearly always verbs, "up" or ''down" signifying the 
act rather than the position. 

Sentence-making stage 

Groups of words, e.g., "da 'tis" (there it is), are sometimes 
learned before single words; but words learned separately are 
rarely combined until they have been used separately for some 
time. The stage of word learning gradually merges into the 



250 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

stage of word combining, and a close observer will usually 
discover that a time comes when a child is more concerned with 
the combination of familiar words than with the learning of 
new ones. This stage is apt to become prominent in the third 
or fourth year. 

The single words that a child uses are, in a way, sentences, 
especially when expression is helped out by tone inflection and 
gesture; e.g., ''papa" means ''Papa has come," "I want my 
papa," "That is papa," "Papa will do it," "I will give it to 
papa," etc. 

An exact report of what a child just beginning to combine 
words says, is surprisingly unintelligible to one knowing nothing 
of the child, or the circumstances and tone of voice accompany- 
ing the words. Only that portion of a thought which is accen- 
tuated in the child's mind or seems to need statement is put 
into words — all the rest is understood from the circumstances 
or expressed in some other way; e.g., "Little story" means 
"Tell me a little story." 

Progress in sentence making is the result of three processes : 
(i) the substitution of words for what is understood or indicated 
by tone or gesture; (2) analysis of situations into separate 
elements which then are expressed by words ; (3) increase of men- 
tal grasp so that the relation of different elements to each other 
is held in mind, and words selected and arranged to indicate 
that relation. 

The shifting of interest and attention from the objects con- 
cerned in an act to the actor or the action, evidently calls atten- 
tion to the elements of a situation and leads to the attempt to 
name the various elements and their relation. Adverbs, adjec- 
tives, and prepositions are the result of attempts to express 
the less important phases of thought and their relations, e.g., 
" Get bed papa " becomes later "I want to get in bed with papa." 

Soon more complex relations are expressed by the introduction 



THE EXPRESSIVE INSTINCT 251 

of conjunctions and relatives so as to connect clauses into com- 
plex sentences, e.g., "I will go and see if papa is there." 

The arrangement of words is determined largely by imitation, 
but is also influenced by shifting of interest and attention. Thus 
a little girl said, ^^Eat, papa apple," then a moment later when 
apple (as contrasted with pear) was most prominent in her mind, 
she said, "Apple, papa eat," while at another time, when the 
person was most thought of, she said, "Papa, eat apple." 

Records of all sentences used by a child between two and four, 
during an hour or more, taken at regular intervals, show a marked 
increase in completeness, length, and complexity of sentences, 
as is shown by the following extract from such a record and the 
table on page 252. 

Twenty-eighth month. ''More pencil" (I want the other 
pencil); ''Little story" (Tell me a little story); "That all?" 
(Is that all?); "New cuff?" (Is that a new cuff?); "Cracker 
want" (I want a cracker). 

Thirty-fourth month. "Know where is my papa?" ; "I want 
kiss baby"; "No want to be dressed"; "I don't want to be 
dressed" ; "Got some little birds on" (said of a screen). 

Fortieth month. "Baby want to get down run round a little 
while"; "I run back and forth"; "No, I don't want to run 
out in the hall" ; "Baby do like to have me run in here, baby 
do" ; "He want me to run here." 

Forty-sixth month. "This is a nice little kitty"; "Don't 
you want to go down there and pat him?" ; "Why don't you, 
he is nice and soft?"; "He is afraid sometimes"; "I tried to 
catch him and give him to you to pat him." 

Contrary to all rules of grammar, most of the child's first 
sentences have no subject, many are without an assertive verb, 
while only a few are without an object. The length of sentence 
is doubled in a few months, and complex and compound sentences 
appear and increase in number, showing the rapid growth in 
mental grasp or span of consciousness. 



252 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

TABLE OF SENTENCES AND WORDS USED BY "M. 



Date 

Age 

Sentences 

Compound Sentences . . 
Complex Sentences , . . 
Compound and Coniplex Sen 

tences 

Clauses 

Compound Subjects . . . 
Compound Predicates . . 
Compound Objects or Modifiers 
Prepositional Phrases . . . 
Infinitive Phrases .... 

Assertive Sentences .... 
Question Sentences .... 
Command or Wish .... 

Incomplete Sentences . . . 

Subject Omitted 

Assertive Verb Omitted . . 
Object of Verb or Preposition 

Words 

Nouns 

Pronouns 

Verbs 

Adverbs 

Adjectives . " 

Prepositions 

Conjunctions 

Interjections 

Different Words 

Nouns 

Pronouns 

Verbs 

Adverbs 

Adjectives 

Prepositions 

Conjunctions 

Interjections 



Nov. II, 


1898 


28 months 


No. 


% 


100 


100 


3 


3 














lOI 


lOI 




















2 (8)1 


2 


2 


2 


42 


42 


20 


2b 


37 


37 


96 


96 


81 


81 


67 


67 


4 


4 


235 


100 


91 


38.7 


12 


5-1 


53 


22.5 


20 


8.5 


46 


19-5 


9 


3.8 








4 


1.2 


107 


57-4 


50 


46.7 


4 


3-7 


24 


22.4 


7 


6.5 


17 


15.8 


2 


1.8 


I 


0.9 


2 






May 13, 1899 
34 months 



No. 



100 
5 



I 
117 

o 

I 
I 

15 
17 

45 

14 

37 

62 

38 

44 

5 

405 

73 

113 

137 

32 

24 

23 

I 
o 

130 

44 

15 

41 

10 

12 

8 

o 

o 



Mil) 
(2) 



% 



100 

5 
II 

I 
117 

o 

I 
I 

15 
17 

45 

14 

37 

62 

38 

44 

5 

100 

18 

27.8 

33.6 
7.8 
5-9 
5-6 
0.2 
o 

32.1 

33.8 

II-5 

33-5 

7-7 

9.2 

6.1 

o 

o 



May 13, 1900 
46 months 



No. 



100 
29 
14 

6 

156 

o 

3 

7 

29 

26 

50 
28 



23 
9 

14 
o 

700 

108 

186 

217 

94 

49 

27 

19 

5 

180 

43 
18 

65 

23 

16 

6 

7 
2 



100 
29 
14 

6 

156 

o 

3 

7 

29 

26 

50 
28 



23 

9 
14 

o 

100 

154 

26.5 

3I-0 

134 

7.0 

3.8 

2.7 

0.7 

25.7 
23-9 
1 0.0 
36.0 

13-3 
9.0 

3-3 
3-9 
i.o 



Additional phrases partly expressed. 



THE EXPRESSIVE INSTINCT 253 

In changing words to indicate person and number, and in 
arranging words in the right order, children often make mistakes, 
but the irregularity of the language in forming plural or tense 
forms is usually the cause. Without conscious generalization, 
children are marvelously quick in applying a common form of 
ending or law of language to new words, e.g., ^'tooken," ''eated,'* 
"mans." A similar influence often leads children to make new 
forms of words according to the peculiarities of the language. 
Thus M., who had been rolling a hoop, said she had been "hoop- 
ing," and at another time spoke of her shoe as "worning" out. 

Recent detailed studies of the vocabularies and sentences of 
children from two to five years of age, of the written work of 
pupils in the grades, and of the understanding vocabularies of 
older pupils indicate that the number of words used may increase 
at the rate of four hundred or more a year and that the number 
understood more or less perfectly is likely to be three to five 
times as great. Such figures and those indicating total vocabu- 
lary vary greatly according to the forms of words counted as 
distinct, the size of the dictionary vocabulary taken as a basis 
for computing percentages, and also as to whether written or 
oral words are counted and whether the averages are for grades 
or for individuals. The studies also show that the language of 
individual children is greatly modified by environment and in- 
terests and at the same time is indicative of such influences and 
of the intellectual development in general and in special lines. 

II. Visual Language 

The factors leading to the understanding and use of visual 
language are only partially the same as for oral language. 
Visual language, as we have it, is at best purely conventional, 
and hence it is not directly based on or associated with a natural 
and instinctive form of expression, as is oral language. The 
imitative tendency is appealed to less frequently and less im- 



254 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

pressively by visual than by oral symbols Necessity, or the 
gaining of desirable ends, is a much less important factor in 
learning to read and write than in learning to talk, because 
the child already has an adequate and easier means of com- 
munication in his oral language than he had in the language 
of natural signs when learning the oral. It is also much 
more difficult to make the understanding and use of visual 
language as necessary to the gratification of the daily desires 
of the child as in the case of oral language. Questions, answers, 
commands and remarks might, however, be expressed in visual 
language a great deal more than they are in the primary schools. 

In the early stage of learning to read and write, the only 
instincts which can be appealed to with as great effectiveness 
as in oral language are the play instinct and the social desire 
for approbation. Hence, although much pedagogical skill is 
now expended in arranging words so as to show their likeness 
and difference, and lead to their analysis and classification, the 
progress in learning visual language is, for some time, slower 
than in the early stage of oral language learning without any 
formal teaching whatever. Children would probably progress 
much faster if oral language were associated with visual, in much 
the same way that oral language is at first supplemented by the 
instinctive language of natural signs. For example, a teacher 
may write only the most important words of a sentence and speak 
the others, or in the earHer attempts at writing, children may 
be allowed to speak some of the difficult words in every sen- 
tence which they write. 

After children have gained the power to read with some facility, 
the instinct of curiosity and the desire to know about the world 
and its people, and to share the thoughts of mankind as expressed 
in books, are the important factors in language learning. A 
sort of reading craze often sets in at this time, which results in 
an enormous addition to the youth's vocabulary (probably a 



THE EXPRESSIVE INSTINCT 255 

thousand words a year would be a low estimate, since, according 
to the author's investigations, high school graduates usually 
know the meaning of twenty or thirty thousand words). Read- 
ing also exercises a great influence on the language habits. Some- 
times even oral language is thus rendered "bookish." 

The impulse to express to individuals or to humanity his own 
ideas and feelings in poem, story, article, or book, often be- 
comes strong in the early teens. If teachers could skillfully 
use this impulse instead of ignoring or checking it, enormous 
advances would be made in teaching language as a means of 
expression. 

Interest in language as such, aside from ideas to be expressed, 
is often first manifested in a marked degree (not counting the 
early period of imitative play) in a playful form of learning to 
use and construct secret languages. This tendency reaches its 
climax at about thirteen. Probably, therefore, this is the age 
for learning foreign languages. Interest in the study of language 
as a form of art or as a science, such as is required in literary 
appreciation and the study of grammar, cannot be greatly de- 
veloped until the language is learned, and as a rule only after 
some of the higher forms of aesthetic appreciation and of abstract 
thought have been reached. Up to this time, children are in- 
terested in language only as a means of expressing thought, and 
the correctness of their language is almost wholly the result of 
imitation and habit. 

After language is learned, rather than before, is the time for 
studying its structure and appreciating its beauty. Grammar 
from the pedagogical point of view is not to be regarded as a 
means of speaking correctly, but as a scientific analysis and clas- 
sification of means of expression which are already familiar. 
In this, as in other cases, the natural order for the race and for 
the individual is to learn how to do a thing, then to admire grace 
in doing it, or enjoy the scientific study of how it is done. 



256 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

Methods oj learning to read 

Methods of teaching reading differ chiefly in the prominence 
they give to the visual symbols and their associated sounds as 
compared with the meaning of these symbols, and in kind of 
previous knowledge which they attempt to utilize. The phonic 
method emphasizes word calling and strives to build up a knowl- 
edge of the sounds corresponding to letters and letter combina- 
tions, as a means of facihtating the learning of words and of in- 
creasing the abihty to pronounce new words. The thought 
method seeks to arouse appropriate thoughts in connection with 
the observation of visual words so as to make the child think of 
the corresponding oral words which are already famiUar to him. 

It is worth while to compare these two methods of learning 
visual language with the method by which the child learns oral 
language, especially when we reflect upon the wonderful command 
of such language which the child gains in a few years. Even 
the most superficial observer of children who are learning to 
talk, knows that they do not learn the elementary sounds of the 
language, then use that knowledge in learning words. They 
learn to understand words and phrases as a whole, and later 
notice their elements and the way in which they are combined 
into sentences. There is no evidence that anything like the 
phonic method is used in learning to get thought through the 
medium of oral symbols. In the matter of expressing thought 
by means of vocal movements there is also Httle or no corre- 
spondence with the phonic method. There is some preliminary 
play with the vocal organs which is doubtless helpful in the 
later learning to utter words, but when a child begins to use 
words as a means of expressing thought there is nothing to in- 
dicate that he is consciously making use of his knowledge of 
elementary sounds in pronouncing those words. 

In learning oral language the child is assisted in getting the 



THE EXPRESSIVE INSTINCT 257 

meaning of words by the situation presented, the significance of 
tone and gesture, and by his knowledge of some of the word 
symbols used. By these means he gets the thought and learns 
to distinguish and utter the corresponding oral symbols. He 
occasionally asks for words to be repeated or practices pro- 
nouncing a new word, but for the most part learns the word and 
its meaning by hearing it used at various times. In the thought 
method of teaching reading, similar aids are used. Thoughts 
are aroused in the child's mind, and the visual words expressing 
them are shown. This makes him think of some of the oral 
words expressing that thought, and the teacher supplies the others, 
pointing out the correspondence. A closely related thought 
expressed by many of the same words is then presented. Knowl- 
edge of the things being expressed and of the oral words for 
expression helps in learning the visual words. After a few words 
have been learned they assist in arousing the ideas corresponding 
to each sentence, and the teacher needs less and less to suggest 
the ideas by other means. If a variety of interesting reading 
is provided, the cliild soon becomes able to read readily selec- 
tions in which the oral forms of the words are already familiar 
to him. 

He can, of course, do little in the way of naming words which 
are not already known to him orally. It is in doing this that the 
phonic method is supposed to be especially helpful. It is worthy 
of note, however, that during the first year or two the words 
learned are with few exceptions already familiar to him in their 
oral forms. 

In the second or third year of reading, the child is likely to 
meet many words that are not known to him orally. This is 
also the time when he usually begins to write and needs to know 
how to spell words. In learning to read he has incidentally 
learned something of the correspondence between visual letters 
and combinations of letters with sounds. A little phonic drill 



258 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

will increase this knowledge, and, if given in connection with 
spelling, will be a valuable aid in that subject. Such knowledge 
will also help in the use of a dictionary. It is, therefore, at this 
time rather than earher, and for these purposes rather than in 
learning to read, that phonic drill is of most value. These re- 
marks apply especially to children who speak well the language 
they are learning to read. Those who do not, will need more 
vocal drill, perhaps in the form of phonics. The thought method 
is also one more easily used with one or a few children than with 
a large class, and is more successful when appHed by an intelli- 
gent teacher than by one who is dependent on rules. 

The question of the method of first learning to read is of less 
importance, however, than the question of how long the child's 
attention shall be directed toward the forms and names of words 
instead of toward the thoughts expressed by the printed page. 
A rapid and effective reader sees only the essentials of words 
and groups of words and does little or nothing in the way of 
vocalizing the sounds, either actually or by image. To keep 
the child's attention chiefly upon naming words in his reading 
lessons rather than upon the thoughts being expressed, during 
several school years, is likely to produce an expert reader of words 
with habits which will render it unlikely, if not impossible, that 
he will ever become a rapid reader in the sense of getting thought 
from the printed page. Since most people read silently from 
ten to a hundred times as much as they read aloud, efficiency 
demands that reading should be taught in such a way as to help 
children to become efficient in getting thought rather than facile 
in naming words. The results of reading tests indicate that 
children taught by the phonic method are much slower and less 
efficient in silent reading than those taught by the thought 
method. 



THE EXPRESSIVE INSTINCT 259 

Learning to write 

Learning to write is analogous to learning to control the vocal 
organs in the acquisition of speech. The more or less playful 
marking with a pencil and playing with letters by children from 
three to six corresponds to the playful exercise of the vocal organs 
by children of less than a year. This may be followed by more 
conscious attempts at imitation of letters corresponding to the 
earlier imitations of sounds, including words. It is only when 
the child tries to make a certain combination of letters in order 
to express thought, that his attempt at written language cor- 
responds to his earUer attempts at expressing ideas by vocal 
movements. 

Since a child learns to speak without special drill in the use 
of the vocal organs, it would seem that he might learn to write 
without special and separate training of the hand in making the 
proper movements. Possibly the apparatus for uttering sounds 
is more easily trained and brought under control than the ap- 
paratus of the hand used in writing, but the chief reason why 
writing is not learned in the same way as is talking is because 
the need for writing is not felt so keenly and frequently, and the 
stimulus of others who are expressing themselves in writing 
is much less effective than in the case of oral language. 

If a child hved among people who communicated wholly by 
writing large words on blackboards and he could understand 
them and make his own wants known only by watching and 
imitating them, he would doubtless learn to write as he now 
learns to talk, without any specific teaching. The learning 
would perhaps be slower because there are few natural signs 
to help in interpreting what is being written, while in learning 
to talk, the natural signs of expression of face, tone of voice, and 
gesture are of great assistance. Even with these advantages 
it has been found possible in the case of individual children to 



26o FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

learn to write with little or no special training in the movements 
of writing. However, although children should undoubtedly 
gain more of their knowledge of writing while trying to say 
things with a pencil or pen, yet the conditions of school life make 
it advantageous to give special training in the movements of 
writing. In this, as ifi most cases, teachers are usually inclined 
to dwell too much upon partial and intermediate phases of the 
complex process, and too Httle inclined to have it performed as 
a whole in reaching some desirable end. 

It does not take children long to learn the approximate forms 
of letters, and the stage of drawing letters while looking at models 
should be shortened rather than prolonged. Very soon the 
practice should be carried on from memory with occasional 
comparisons with good models for correction. Separate practice 
in holding pen and in free movements should be used, but with 
attention directed rather to the resulting ovals and curves than 
to the fingers and muscles. These practice movements should 
alternate with making letters, and later, with writing to express 
thought, so that the freedom of movement will carry over. Much 
variation as to size and form of letters should be permitted at 
first, in order that the child may not be induced to slowly draw 
letters with cramped movements instead of freely writing them. 

Any attempt at immediate accuracy and uniformity in writing 
is directly contrary to the general principles of learning a com- 
plex act, in accordance with which there is always a gradual 
approach to definiteness of movement. As long as the child's 
writing is varying and in general toward better forms, the progress 
should be regarded as normal and satisfactory. Watch should 
be kept, however, to see that some undesirable mode of move- 
ment or form of letter is not repeated until it becomes a habit 
and progress is arrested. When such a tendency appears, it is 
not usually best to call attention to the defect, but to do 
something which will lead to a variation, perhaps in excess of 



THE EXPRESSIVE INSTINCT 261 

what is desired, then to emphasize the desirable forms and 
movements as they appear. 

Modern methods of teaching penmanship are great improve- 
ments over those formerly used, but there is still too little recog- 
nition of the fact that it may be advantageous for children to 
use various kinds of movements in learning to write, before they 
settle upon the exact movements found to be best for adults 
who are to become expert penmen. For instance, it is doubtful 
whether early insistence upon the exclusive use of the muscular 
movement by young children is wise, taking into account general 
principles of learning and the probable order in which different 
muscle groups naturally mature. There is also still too much 
separate practice upon penmanship and too little practice in 
using the knowledge and skill acquired, while accomplishing 
some end by means of writing. This results often in two styles 
of writing, one used when practicing penmanship and the other 
in practical work. 

Learning to spell 

One of the most common illusions of teachers is that children 
are learning to spell only when they are studying a spelling lesson, 
when, as a matter of fact, they are learning to a greater or less 
extent how to spell whenever they see or hear or attempt to 
write words. The chief advantage of spelling lessons is not 
that the spelling of specific words is learned, but that they compel 
attention to the elements composing words and cause the child 
to notice those elements more, when he is seeing and hearing 
words. Since, however, the natural tendency in language 
learning is to notice more and more only what is essential to 
thought, it is necessary to have some special practice in spelling, 
unless children spend much more time than they do now in 
expressing themselves in writing. 

Phonics are a help in learning to spell, chiefly in that they 
make one familiar with the usual sounds of letters and com- 



262 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

binations, so that the child can guess the approximate spelling 
of a large proportion of words whether they are famihar or not. 
Phonics should be taught with this end in view. 

In learning to spell specific words attention should be directed 
particularly to the letters which the child cannot guess, from his 
knowledge of phonics, are the ones to be used. Specific mem- 
orizing of parts may be carried on by repeating impressions or 
images, either of the sound of the letters in the word or their vis- 
ual appearance, or by both. Again, the process may be carried 
on by the movements of vocalizing the sounds or by writing 
the words, or both at once. Some children receive most help 
by emphasis upon one kind of stimulus or image, and others 
upon another. The chief thing to be done is to attend, in per- 
ceiving or imaging, to the specific elements which need to be 
memorized, instead of mechanically producing all the ele- 
ments. 

Another point brought out clearly by investigations is that 
children in the higher grades usually misspell many of the com- 
mon words which they learned to recognize in the lower grades. 
This is probably because these words were observed only enough 
to distinguish them from other words and to get the thought 
suggested ; hence it was natural that the habit of not noticing 
the exact composition of familiar words was developed. The 
remedy for this would seem to be earlier attention to the writing 
of these little common words so as to compel the child not 
only to recognize the words, but to notice the exact letters com- 
posing them. If this has been omitted, the only remedy is 
special study and practice in writing such words by the chil- 
dren who misspell them. 

III. Drawing 

Drawing may be considered as an art based on the constructive 
and aesthetic instincts, but in its earHer stages, at any rate, it 



THE EXPRESSIVE INSTINCT 263 

is to a considerable extent really a language based on the expres- 
sive instinct. 

There is no purely instinctive stage of drawing as there is of 
oral language, but there is a very well marked playful and imi- 
tative stage. Children delight in making marks just as they 
dehght in making sounds, so the scribble stage corresponds 
exactly to the "da da" stage of oral language. The sight of 
some one using a pencil is likely to set a child to scribbling, just 
as the talk of others often sets the young child to babbling. In 
neither case is there at first any real imitation of distinct move- 
ments. A little later, crude attempts at imitating the move- 
ments of others are made, but with much less persistency and 
success than in the case of sounds. Evidently the natural rela- 
tion of eye perceptions to hand movements is much less perfect 
than between ear perceptions and vocal movements. 

In the next stage, corresponding to the word-learning stage 
of oral language, drawings are made by the child, not merely 
for the pleasure of making movements and the joy of imitating, 
but in order to express ideas of objects and events. Any dot 
or line or combination of them which suggests to the child the 
appearance of any object, is at first a perfectly satisfactory 
picture of it. Often a ''picture" is named or renamed after it 
is made, because something is suggested by the lines or dots. 
What to the child is most essential, whether visible or not, is 
indicated, and the rest unnoticed or filled out in the mind. The 
stomach of a man may be represented when neither the rest of 
the trunk nor the arms are shown. At first the different parts 
of a man may be scattered over the paper, a dot or curve being 
pointed out or made, as each part — eye, mouth, head, etc. — 
is named. 

A Httle later much more attention is paid to the position of 
one part in relation to the others, and still later, to the relative 
size of parts. This evidently corresponds to the word-combin- 



264 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

ing or sentence-making stage of language expression. The 
child not only tries to make something which will suggest the 
idea he wishes to convey, but aims to represent objects ; just as 
in language, his sentences become not merely suggestive of ideas, 
but complete expressions of them. 

At the time when the child's drawings are partly symbolic 
and partly representative, they are often very free and uncon- 
strained expressions of his ideas. His make-beheve tendency 
helps him to see in his drawings all that he meant by them. He 
has little feeling of their inadequacy, and is ready to make almost 
anything, and to tell almost any story with his graphic art, by 
which both the outside and inside of houses are shown, wind 
or heat indicated, successive events pictured, and the important 
parts shown by increased size. During this period the child 
draws from what is in his mind rather than from what he per- 
ceives ; hence, his picture of a man or table is generic rather than 
individual, as is shown by the fact that placing a model before 
him produces Httle or no modification of the conventional design 
he has adopted. 

Sooner or later, perhaps most frequently at about nine years 
of age, the child begins to feel the inadequacy of his representa- 
tions. This feeling is earlier and stronger because of the criti- 
cisms of teachers. He can no longer believe that his drawing 
really looks like what he wishes to represent ; hence, he is not so 
ready to try to draw everything. This is the time when he needs 
encouragement, and some instruction as to how he may show 
perspective and represent objects as they look instead of as 
they are. The difficulties of doing this are so great, especially 
when the process is not associated with the desire to express 
something, that only a few ever regain their former freedom 
of graphic expression. Drawing becomes for most children, 
therefore, an exercise in mechanical imitation and representation 
instead of a favorite means of expression. If drawing were 



THE EXPRESSIVE INSTINCT 265 

taught in these early stages as a mode of telling what has been 
observed, rather than as an art, the results would be far better. 
A little earlier than the time at which language acquires a 
scientific and aesthetic interest, drawing acquires similar interest, 
and great delight may be taken either in mechanical drawings 
or in the making of beautiful drawings or pictures. All along 
there has been some aesthetic interest in colors, but now this 
interest is deepened and refined, and the appreciation of beauty 
of form develops. This is the time for artistic and mechanical 
drawing and for the study of the subject as a science or as a fine 
art, though drawing as a convenient means of expressing ideas 
gained in nearly all subjects studied should not be neglected. 

Methods of teaching drawing 

Drawing instruction has suffered from two sources, belief in 
logical methods of teaching and the idea that drawing is for the 
training of artists. The first has led to the analysis of forms 
into lines and curves and to separate practice in making them, 
similar to the method used in the alphabet and phonic methods 
of teaching reading. It has also led to the study of type forms 
and the drawing of geometrical figures before attempting objects 
of nature. Experience, however, shows that not only are such 
drawings less interesting to children, but they really are more 
difficult. There is only one way of drawing a perfectly straight 
line or an exact square, and any deviation from the one cor- 
rect form is more easily seen than corrected. There are scores 
of ways of drawing a leaf or a whole plant which will give a fairly 
satisfactory representation of it ; hence, results that seem good 
are obtained and the ability to judge of drawings does not get 
so far ahead of the ability to make them as to produce dis- 
couragement. 

Much improvement has taken place in this respect, but the 
idea that children should make beautiful drawings still domi- 



266 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

nates to such an extent that a large proportion of children find 
their work in drawing unsatisfactory. They can see their fail- 
ures so much earlier than they can correct them that there is 
Httle satisfaction in what they do. This is now being remedied 
in part by relieving children of the necessity of making beautiful 
forms, which is for most of them impossible, and yet giving them 
the opportunity to produce what seems to them beautiful by 
means of color. From the aesthetic point of view, drawing should 
help children to appreciate beauty rather than train them to 
produce beauty such as is required by the artist. 

With all the improvements which have been made there is 
still too little attention to drawing as a means of expressing 
ideas. The motive for drawing a flower or a cup should not 
be to make a beautiful picture, but to express what is seen. The 
children should try to make the drawing of a flower such as to 
indicate what kind it is and which individual specimen was used 
as a model. In drawing a cup not only should the form be 
similar to that of the cup, but the drawing should show from what 
angle the cup was seen by the one who drew it. Only in the 
technical training of artists should emphasis be placed upon the 
production of a beautiful picture. 

There is still too much attention to immediate details in draw- 
ing and not enough emphasis upon the idea to be expressed by 
the drawing as a whole. To remedy this, there should be much 
more drawing from memory, the results being corrected and 
improved by fresh observations and renewed attempts from 
memory. There should also be more drawing for a purpose, 
such as to indicate how to make something or to help in the 
understanding of a description or the appreciation of a story. 

In all this work it is not necessary that there shall be a definite, 
logical sequence in the lessons, but that the children shall under- 
take something they are interested in doing and that they can 
do in a manner which is satisfactory at least to them. 



THE EXPRESSIVE INSTINCT 267 

Exercises for Students 

1. Describe means of expression employed by animals, and show that 
they are useful. 

2. Describe any modes of expression that you have noticed infants use. 

3. What kind of words do the blind learn ? The deaf ? Those who are 
both blind and deaf? 

4. Have you ever had the impulse to express yourself in other ways 
than by language, such as painting or modehng? 

5. Give evidence that there is a tendency to respond to every stimulus 
by a movement, and for every idea to be expressed in movement. Illustrate 
how words may be used in place of other movements. Look up the root 
meanings of several words. 

6. Is the growing custom of beginning to teach deaf children at an early 
age a good one? Why? If a deaf and a hearing child enter school at five, 
which should be farther along in language, the deaf child at twelve or the 
hearing child at nine ? Why? 

7. Can you express feeling by writing as perfectly as by talking? Why? 
Are children under ten affected as much by stories told as by stories they 
read? Why? 

8. Report any instances you have observed of playful or imitative use 
of words by young children. 

9. Report any observations you have made of the serious efforts of 
children to learn words. 

10. Illustrate how necessity leads a child to learn to imderstand and use 
language. 

11. State facts showing the prominence of one or another of the stages of 
language learning of a child you know. 

12. Report just as many examples of childish mispronunciation as possi- 
ble, and state the cause if you can. Compare tables of Lukens and Tracy. 

13. Record and report vocabularies of children of about two years if 
possible, noting pronunciation and meaning and parts of speech of all words. 
Compare with Tracy, Moore, Gale, et al. 

14. Record everything said by a child of two or three during an hour or 
two, and study to discover omissions and other peculiarities. 

15. Report instances of children extending the rules for forming endings 
or in making new forms of words. 

16. Report what you have done or observed regarding secret languages. 
Could not the playful tendency to make a language be utilized in the study 
of visual language more than it is? 



268 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

17. Illustrate how the same kind of necessity which leads a child to learn 
oral language may be used in learning visual language. Illustrate in detail 
how oral language may be used to supplement visual, e.g., the teacher says 
part of a sentence and writes the rest. 

18. Estimate your own vocabulary by counting all the words you know 
on every tenth, fiftieth, or hundredth page of the dictionary. 

19. Let some one pose for children of the kindergarten or first grade while 
they draw. Examine the drawings. Bring in specimens of drawings of 
children not yet in school. Compare Barnes, Sully, Lukens, and Brown. 

20. Have children of several grades illustrate a story, and make a study 
of the drawings. 

21. Should drawing be taught children as an art or as a means of expres- 
sion before ten years of age? Why? 

Suggestions for Reading 

On the general subject of expression and language, consult Romanes, Mental 
Evolution in Man, chaps, v to ix; Baldwin, Vol. I, pp. 221-262, and 
Vol. II, pp. 126-139; Whitney, Life and Growth of Language; Robin- 
son, Pop. Sci. Mo., Vol. LVI, pp. 784-798; Hale, Pop. Sci. Mo., Vol. 
XXX, pp. 712-713 ; Science, Vol. XII, O. S., p. 145. 

On the development of speech and vocabularies, see Lukens, Ped. Sent., Vol. 
Ill, pp. 424-460; Tracy, chap, v, also in Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. VI, 
pp. 107-138 ; SuUy, chap, v ; Preyer, Part II ; Moore, Part IV ; Taine, 
Pop. Sci. Mo., Vol. IX, p. 129 ; Noble, Educ, Vol. IX, pp. 44-52, 117- 
121, 188-194; Chamberlain, chap, v; Compayre, Vol. II, chap, iii; 
Gale, Ped. Sent., Vol. IX, pp. 422-435; Pop. Sci. Mo., Vol. LXI, pp. 
45-51, or in Univ. of Minn. Psychological Studies; Sanford, Ped. Sent., 
Vol. I, pp. 257-259; W. S. Hall, Ch. S. Mo., Vol. II, pp. 585-608; Jr. 
Ch. and Ad., January, 1902, pp. 1-13 ; Kirkpatrick, Science, Vol. 
XVIII, 0. S., pp. 107-108, 175-176; Wolfe, Ch. S. Mo., Vol. Ill, pp. 
141-150; Jegi, Ch. S. Mo., Vol. VI, pp. 241-261; Barnes, Studies in 
Ed., Vol. II, pp. 43-6i. 

On language teaching, see Groszmann, Ch. S. Mo., Vol. IV, pp. 266-278 ; 
Hinsdale, Teaching the Language Arts; Jacobi, in Psychological Notes 
on Primary Education, pp. 62-120; Iredell, Educ, Vol. XIX, pp. 233- 
238. See also Williams, " Children's Interest in Words," Ped. Sem., Vol. 
IX, pp. 274-295 ; Hancock, " Children's Tendencies in Written Lan- 
guage," N. W. Mo., Vol. VIII, pp. 646-649; and Judd, chap, viii, on 
the process of reading, and chap, vii, on writing. 



THE EXPRESSIVE INSTINCT 



269 



On development of interest and ability in drawing, see Shinn ; Brown, Univ. 
of Cal. Studies, 1897, pp. 75 ; Barnes, Studies, Vol. I, pp. 283-294, Vol. 
II, pp. 75-77, 163-179 (also a child's drawings in every number) ; Sully, 
chap, x; Lukens, Fed. Sent., Vol. IV, pp. 79-110; Chamberlain, pp. 
190-211 ; Hart, N. W. Mo., Vol. VIII, pp. 193-196; Clarke, Ed. Rev., 
Vol. XIII, pp. 76-82 ; O'Shea, N. E. A., 1894, pp. 1015-1023 ; Galla- 
gher, N. W. Mo., Vol. VIII, pp. 130-134 ; Scott, Trans. III. Ch. S. Soc, 
Vol. Ill, p. 12 ; F. Burk, Fed. Sent., Vol. IX, pp. 296-323 ; Fitz, Fop. 
Set. Mo., Vol. LI, pp. 755-765. 



Ayer 

Chamberlain 

Cook and O'Shea 

Dearborn 

Drummond 

Freeman 

GeseU 



Later References 
Books 

Huey 

Kirkpatrick (3) 
McMurry 
O'Shea (i) 
Sandiford 
SuUy 

Articles 



Tanner 

Taylor 

Thompson 

Thorndike (9 & 10) 

Tracy 

Watson 



Bateman, W. G. A Child's Progress in Speech with Detailed Vocabu- 
laries, J. Educal. Psychol., 1914, Vol. 5, pp. 307-320. 

Bateman, W. G. The Language Status of Three Children at the Same 
Age. Ped. Sem., 1916, Vol. 23, pp. 211-240. 

Boggs, Lucinda P. How Children Learn to Read. Ped. Sem., 1905, 
Vol. 12, pp. 496-504. 

Bohn, W. E. First Steps in Verbal Expression. Ped. Sem., 1914, Vol. 
21, pp. 578-595- 

Brandenburg, Geo. C. Language of a Three Year Old Child. Ped. Sem., 
191 5, Vol. 22, pp. 89-120. 

Brandenburg, G. C. and Julia. Language Development During the Fourth 
Year. Ped. Sem., 1916, Vol. 23, pp. 14-29. 

Briggs, Thomas H. Formal English Grammar. Teachers CoUege 
Record, 1913, Vol. 14, pp. 251-343. 

Burnham, Wm. H. The Hygiene of Psychology of Spelling. Ped. Sem., 
1906, Vol. 13, pp. 474-501. 

Burnham, Wm. H. The Hygiene of Drawing. Ped. Sem., 1907, Vol. 14, 
pp. 289-304. 



270 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

Carr, H. P. Experimental Studies in the Teaching of Spelling. Teachers 

College Record, 191 2, Vol. 13, pp. 37-66. 
Chamberlain, A. F. and Isabel C. Studies of a Child. Ped. Sem., 1905, 

Vol. 12, pp. 427-453- 
Charters, W. W. A Spelling Hospital in the High School. The School 

Rev., 1910, p. 192 £f. 
Conradi, Edward. Psychology and Pathology of Speech Development in 

the Child. Ped. Sem., 1904, Vol. 11, pp. 328-380. 
Cook, W. A. ShaU We Teach Spelling by Rule. J. Educal. Psych., 

1912, Vol. 3, pp. 316-325. 
Coppersmith, Mary E. Suggestions in Teaching English. Ped. Sem., 1906, 

Vol. 13, pp. 461-473- 
Doran, Edwin W. A Study of Vocabularies. Ped. Sem., 1907, Vol. 14, 

pp. 401-438. 
Fulton, Martha J. An Experiment in Teaching Spelling. Ped. Sem., 

1914, Vol. 21, pp. 287-289. 

Grant, J. K. The Child's Vocabulary and Its Growth. Ped. Sem., 1915, 

Vol. 22, pp. 183-203. 
Grupe, Mary A. Phonics in Relation to Early Reading. Ped. Sem., 1916, 

Vol. 23, pp. 175-183- 
Hall, G. S. The Psychological Aspects of Teaching Modern Language. 

Ped. Sem., 1914, Vol. 21, pp. 256-263. 
Heilig, Matthias R. A Child's Vocabulary. Ped. Sem., 1913, Vol. 20, 

pp. 1-16. 
Hoyt, Franklin S. The Place of Grammar in the Elementary Curriculum. 

Teachers College Record, 1906, Vol. 7, pp. 467-494. 
Kline, L. W. A Study on the Psychology of Spelling. J. Educal. 

Psych., 191 2, Vol. 3, pp. 381-400. 
Lagenbeck, Mildred. A Study of a Five Year Old ChHd. Ped. Sem., 

1915, Vol. 22, pp. 65-88. 

Libby, Walter. An Experiment in Learning a Foreign Language. Ped. 

Sem., 1910, Vol. 17, pp. 81-96. 
Mateer, Florence. The Vocabulary of a Four Year Old Boy. Ped. Sem., 

1908, Vol. 15, pp. 63-74. 
MacDougall, Robert. The Child's Speech. J. Educal. Psych., 191 2, Vol. 

3, pp. 423-429, 507-513, 570-576. Also 1913, Vol. 4, pp. 85-96. 
Melville, A. H. An Investigation of the Function and Use of Slang. Ped. 

Sem., 191 2, Vol. 19, pp. 94-100. 
Nice, Margaret M. The Development of a Child's Vocabulary in Relation 

to Environment. Ped. Sem., 1915, Vol. 22, pp. 35-64. 



THE EXPRESSIVE INSTINCT 271 

Ogden, R. M. Knowing and Expressing. Fed. Sem., 191 1, Vol. 18, pp. 

47-53- 
Pelsma, John R. A Child's Vocabulary and Its Development. Fed. Sem,, 

1910, Vol. 17, pp. 328-369. 
Rowe, E. C. and Helen N. The Vocabulary of a Child at Four and Six 

Years of Age. Fed. Sem., 1913, Vol. 20, pp. 187-208. 
Sechrist, Frank K. The Psychology of Unconventional Language. Fed. 

Sem., 1913, Vol. 20, pp. 413-459. 
Snyder, AHce O. Notes on the Talk of a Two and a Half Year Old Boy, 

Fed. Sem., 1914, Vol. 21, pp. 412-424. 
Suzzallo, Henry. Comparative Experimental Teaching in Spelling. 

Teachers College Record, 191 2, Vol. 13, pp. 1-33. 
Trettien, A. W. Psychology of the Language Interest of Children. Fed. 

Sem., 1904, Vol. II, pp. 113-177. 
Whipple, Professor and Mrs. Guy M. The Vocabulary of a Three Year 

Old Boy with Some Interpretative Comments. Fed. Sem., 1909, 

Vol. 16, pp. 1-22. 



CHAPTER XVI 

DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECT 

GENERAL ORDER OF DEVELOPMENT 

As we have already seen, the child begins life with little or 
no conscious intelligence, yet with well-marked reflex and in- 
stinctive tendencies to act for its own good. This unconscious 
mechanical intelligence controls the infant's action and enables 
it to survive. It also determines the general characteristics of 
conscious intelligence, for it determines the kind and sequence 
of movements and, to some extent, of sensations other than 
motor, as the child acts and reacts in ways favoring self-preser- 
vation. 

IntelHgence develops by utilizing past experiences in reacting 
to new situations. Reflex and instinctive tendencies produce 
reactions which give the original basis of knowledge. As various 
instincts ripen, the tendencies to react so as to get experiences 
appropriate to their satisfaction increase, and thus the materials 
with which intellect deals, naturally vary with age. What 
the child shall be interested in and the general lines along which 
intellectual development shall proceed, are thus determined to 
a greater or less extent at each age by the instinctive tend- 
encies most prominent at that time. 

On the other hand, the natural and social environment of the 
child furnishes the outer stimuli to mental activity and deter- 
mines the situations which must be met by the intellectual 
responses of the individual. These environmental influences 
often have even more effect in determining interests and the 

272 



DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECT 273 

general lines of intellectual development than do native talents. 
They cannot, however, wholly modify fundamental instinctive 
tendencies. For example, the same kind of interest in love 
stories cannot be aroused in a child of six as in one of sixteen. 

The chief problem of mental development from the intellectual 
side concerns the method of utilizing past experiences in reacting 
to varying situations. The intellect is instinctively applied to 
the task of obtaining the most satisfactory result as easily and 
quickly as possible. A child may show as high a grade of in- 
telligence in doing this as does an adult, but the adult has a dif- 
ferent way of using past experiences in meeting the new situation ; 
and this in part constitutes the greater maturity of the adult 
intellect. This maturing of intelligence is largely the result of 
extensive experiences, but not wholly ; for some intellects, as in 
the case of the feeble-minded, never mature, and extensive 
experience of a certain kind cannot produce exactly the same 
kind of maturity in a child which is found in an adult, although 
it may almost do so in one or two narrow Knes. Maturing of 
general intelligence, like growth, proceeds much more rapidly in 
the early years of development. 

The most elementary form of intellectual activity which aids 
in meeting varying situations is perceptual. It requires sensory 
discrimination which makes it possible to vary the reaction in 
fitting ways according to slight variations in the situation and 
the exact nature of the stimuli. By such sensory discrimina- 
tions, an individual is able to select more and more accurately 
suitable food, avoid injuries, and react in the right way to com- 
panions. The greater the intelHgence, the more readily are 
modifications of reactions made, and the more quickly is 
the most favorable one found. When such favorable reactions 
have been found, habits are soon estabhshed. After that, con- 
scious intelligence has little more to do with such special acts 
as lono: as the conditions remain essentiallv the same. In- 



274 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

telligence thus helps in modifying and combining natural reac- 
tions into useful habits of the individual. So far as the particular 
reaction is concerned, conscious intelligence and will are used 
chiefly during the period when the native reactions are being 
modified into particular habits, after which they play Uttle part 
in meeting similar situations. 

It is found that when an animal or child is presented with a 
new situation involving different stimuH and calling for a dif- 
ferent reaction, the way in which this situation is met depends 
upon previous habits. Sometimes a previous habit delays the 
finding of the best response to the new situation, and sometimes 
it hastens it. Several related habits, not too firmly estabhshed, 
are nearly always helpful in learning the right response to new 
situations. The grade of intelligence of any creature corresponds 
to the readiness with which past experiences in learning are 
utilized in learning something new. Increased ability in dis- 
criminating what in the present situation is essentially like 
former situations is a mark of maturing intelligence. It involves 
increased analysis of situations and classification of elements 
which are similar. In this an older animal as well as an older 
human being usually shows greater maturity than a younger, 
even when they have had the same amount of experience of 
the particular kind related to the thing being learned, e.g., a 
series of mazes, problems, or puzzles. All that precedes applies 
to both animals and children confronted by a situation involving 
immediate sensory stimuli, which may be met by the use of 
things which are present. In the exercise of such perceptual 
intelligence some animals and feeble-minded persons rival 
normal human beings. 

There is another form of intellectual activity, representative 
in character, which is engaged in by normal children at a few 
years of age, which is almost if not quite impossible to animals. 
This is used in reacting in advance to situations not sensorially 



DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECT 275 

present. A little girl plans what she will have at the play tea 
party when her Httle friend comes. In such cases the situation 
is represented and also the suitable reaction to be made, and no 
immediate sensory discrimination is involved. The imaging 
process required is quite a different form of intelligent action 
from the sense perceptual process previously described. It is, 
however, founded on sense experience and represents a higher 
development of intelligence. There is, of course, a great deal 
of mental activity of an intermediate stage in which some of the 
elements of the situation or the reaction are sensorially present 
or where something that is present is used to represent what is 
not, as is so often the case in children's dramatic plays. The 
ability to plan for a distant future which is characteristic of 
human beings as compared with animals, and of adults as com- 
pared with young children, is dependent largely upon the devel- 
opment of a kind of intelligence that can act successfully by 
means of representative processes. 

There is a still higher form of intellectual process which is 
used by more developed and mature minds which may be de- 
signated as conceptual intelligence. In the exercise of this form 
of intelligence, the sensations given by material objects have 
little part, and even the images of things are not necessary. 
The situation to be met does not involve discrimination of sen- 
sations or clear representation of a particular past experience, 
but it does involve in a high degree the utilizing of many past 
experiences. In most instances, symbols are observed or imaged 
and used to represent not any one individual experience, but the 
classified and generalized results of many similar experiences. 
For example, in answering this question, ^'What would you do 
if you were in the woods and saw some wolves coming toward 
you?" one does not need to observe or image a wolf or a tree 
(although he may do so) in order to mentally meet the situation. 
The symbol ''wolves" takes the place of a group of dangerous 



276 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

animals which cannot cHmb, while "woods" is the symbol of a 
group of objects which may be climbed by human beings. 

The more mature and highly developed the intellect, the more 
will it be possible to thus mentally meet situations which are 
not present, without detailed representation of them. The im- 
portant elements of past experiences have been selected and 
classified in such a way that they, as well as the proper mode of 
reaction, may be represented by symbols. This form of reaction 
is impossible to young children and to the feeble-minded as well 
as to animals. A young child or a feeble-minded individual 
might find how many blocks an inch square would be required 
to make one row around the inside of a box three by four inches, 
by placing them in position, then counting them. An intelligent 
child of ten might be able to solve the problem in the absence 
of both box and blocks by imaging them or by making the marks 
on paper to represent them. An older person could learn to 
solve all such problems by means of symbols, using such a 
formula as, "The number of blocks equals the perimeter of the 
box, less four." The first method is slow and adapted to un- 
developed intellects, the second is more rapid and requires 
human intelligence of considerable capacity, while the last re- 
quires a highly developed intelligence able to use symbols in 
the place of actual or represented past experiences of certain 
kinds, and can be used with much greater rapidity and certainty 
when the numbers involved are large, than can the other 
methods. 

We find, then, that development or maturity of intelligence is 
marked by changes in interests growing out of changes in in- 
stincts and by a greater and greater independence of immediate 
and particular sensory experiences. The development of a 
higher and more efficient type of intelligence in a particular line 
may be hastened by setting before the individual numerous 
situations or problems and stimulating him to solve them, and 



DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECT 277 

by directing attention to the essential elements of the situations 
and of the successful reactions to them. If, however, a child is 
taught formulas to be memorized and used mechanically without 
having sufficient sensory and representative experiences of what 
the symbols represent, he will not have gained anything that 
will help him in generalizing from other experiences and thus 
exercising a higher form of intelligence. 

DEVELOPMENT OF DISCRIMINATION 

Discrimination in early Hfe is one of the most essential of 
all mental powers, and it seems to be greater in adults than in 
children. It may be doubted, however, whether the better 
discrimination of adults is not a matter of special knowledge and 
practice, helped a little by increased power of analysis and con- 
centration. An Indian can read the signs of the passage of 
enemies or wild animals much more perfectly than the white 
man, who is so acute as to read little black marks on paper ; 
a sailor can see land long before the landsman, and a blind man 
can recognize persons by touch or sound with a readiness astonish- 
ing to a seeing man. In all these cases one seems to have greater 
power of discrimination than the other ; but in every case it is 
probably wholly the result of special knowledge and practice. 
Each knows what signs to look for and what they mean, while 
the man of different training is familiar with an entirely different 
set of signs. Each has certain centers developed, but we cannot 
say that one has greater general power of discrimination than the 
other. The effect of knowledge upon discrimination is impressed 
upon one when he tries to read familiar sentences and unknown 
names in a dim light, or in poor writing, for one may easily be 
read while the other cannot be made out at all. 

The extensive experiments of Gilbert upon children of school 
age indicated that their power of discrimination of weight, dis- 
tance, color, pitch, etc., increased from two to five times with 



278 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

age — a difference corresponding pretty well to that which may 
be produced in certain lines in a short time by special training. 
Since most of his tests were made in such a way that comparison 
and classification of a number of stimuli, as ten colors, were 
required, instead of mere discrimination between two, it is prob- 
able that the superiority of the older children was due partly 
to increased power of concentration, systematic comparison and 
expression, and partly to greater practice in making discrimina- 
tions similar to those tested, and not at all to any fundamental 
difference in the power of discrimination of children of different 
ages. 

DEVELOPMENT IN RATE OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 

The difference in the mental quickness or reaction time of 
children and adults is very marked, but it may be doubted if it 
would exist were both to face an experience equally new to both. 
It is a well-known fact that any act, physical or mental, can be 
performed more quickly after practice. The reasons for this are : 
(i) nervous impulses move more rapidly so that movement and 
thought are quicker ; (2) they go more directly and continuously 
so that motion and thought are less diffuse ; and (3) several 
series of impulses move at once, as when one is reading notes, 
playing with both hands, and singing at the same time. 

It is not unusual for simple reaction time to be reduced one 
half by practice ; and complex tasks are frequently done, after 
a few months' practice, in from a half to a fifth of the time 
required for the first performance. Hence, it is not improbable 
that the difference in mental quickness of children and adults 
is entirely the result of incidental practice in activities which 
are the same, or partly the same, as those tested. The tests 
of Bryan, Hancock, and Gilbert, on rates of movement, and of 
Gilbert, Bentley, Partridge, and Curtis on reaction time, both 
simple and complex, show that from school age to maturity the 



DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECT 279 

rate of movement and of mental activity is not quite doubled, 
and that the improvement is greatest where there has been most 
special training, as in naming printed words, rather than naming 
pictures or objects ; hence, there is Httle reason to doubt that the 
difference between adults and children in rate of mental activity- 
is almost wholly the result of training, either special or incidental. . 

INCREASE IN MENTAL GRASP 

That the child's mental grasp is small, is evident from his 
first attempts at speech. He cannot keep several syllables in 
mind long enough to pronounce them all. His ideas are ex- 
pressed by means of single words or gestures. Soon he uses 
two words, usually a predicate and object or modifier. His 
sentences grow longer as adjectives and other modifying words 
are added, but it is a long time before conjunctions are used and 
compound sentences formed. Complex sentences, which re- 
quire even more mental grasp, come still later. A little girl 
of thirty-two months understood, when told to eat her potatoes 
with her spoon and her meat with her fork, but was unable to 
hold the four ideas in mind while she got the right words in 
which to express them. A few days later, however, she used 
her first conjunction in the sentence, "I pin it there so baby can 
get it." Children are often confused when told to do more than 
one thing, because they have not sufficient grasp of consciousness 
to hold all in the mind at once. The fact found in many tests, 
that children of school age read by words and cannot carry in 
their minds any but short sentences, while older children and 
adults read by phrases or even clauses, and can carry in conscious- 
ness enough of a long, complex, and compound sentence to give 
each clause the right expression, is very significant. 

The experiments of Jacobs, Jastrow, Bolton, Smedley, and the 
author, upon children of school age, show that their a.bility 
to repeat or write a list of letters, figures, syllables, or familiar 



28o FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

words, immediately after they have been heard or seen, generally 
increases with age by about one third, from the age of eight or 
nine to eighteen. As the reproduction is immediate, it is not so 
much a matter of memory proper as of mental grasp. 

The cause of this increase in mental grasp with age is probably 
the same as that which makes it possible for us to hold in mind 
a long description of a route to be taken among familiar objects ; 
while a short description of a route among unfamiliar objects 
cannot be kept in mind long enough perhaps to get started right. 
The same cause makes it easy for a skillful chess or checker player 
to see at once many more results of a move than he could when 
he began, or for an experienced musician to play with both hands, 
work the pedals, perceive the notes, and sing the words of a song 
all at the same time. In other words, ideas, or a series of ideas, 
and even combinations of several series of ideas that have be- 
come definite and well established, are easily held in mind, 
while indefinite and newly formed ideas can be kept in conscious- 
ness only in limited numbers and with effort. 

The ideas of the child are largely new, while those of the adult 
are oftener old or connected with old ideas ; hence the adult's 
mental grasp is greater chiefly because of knowledge and ex- 
perience. The effect of knowledge on mental grasp is well shown 
by a series of experiments in which first-grade children and adults 
reproduce ordinary letters, Greek letters, and familiar sentences. 
The adults have little advantage in the case of Greek letters, a 
great deal in ordinary letters, and are almost infinitely better 
in reproducing the letters making a sentence. Evidently the 
difference is due to greater familiarity and increased mental 
grasp. 

DEVELOPMENT OF PERCEPTION 

Perception depends upon three things: (i) the sensations 
experienced at the moment; (2) power of discrimination, and 



DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECT 281 

(3) the results of past experiences which are reproduced more or 
less perfectly at the moment of perceiving. The power of dis- 
crimination varies, as we have seen, with special practice. The 
chief difference, therefore, between the perceptions of a child 
and of an adult, is in the past experiences which are called up by 
the sensations. 

Since the adult has many more experiences that may be sug- 
gested by a sensation than a child, there is a greater possibility 
of a wrong idea being awakened ; but this is offset by greater 
power of discrimination ; hence, though the adult is not always 
more quick in classifying an object or interpreting a sensation, 
he is likely to be more definite and accurate than the child who 
has fewer possibilities suggested from his limited experience, 
but who does not so readily analyze and note essentials. The 
difference is not, however, greater than that between adults of 
different occupations, such as a botanist and a milliner, a printer 
and a pilot. 

The practical necessity in all perception is not to note the 
exact nature of the sensations produced by different objects 
and under different circumstances, but to recognize objects and 
react to them in the proper way. Nothing but a sphere gives, 
in all positions, the same visual sensations ; hence, we learn to 
know, not the apparent form of objects, but their real form. 
This "real" form, however, is simply the appearance which 
they assume when perceived most clearly, i.e., when near at 
hand, directly in front, and at right angles to the line of sight. 
Other sensations vary also. For example, the sound produced 
by an object depends upon what it is struck with, as well as its 
distance ; while objects vary in taste according as they are more 
or less hot or cold, wet or dry, etc. 

Before the child enters school, he has learned to know just 
what appearances may be relied upon as indicating a certain 
form, sound, taste, or touch. He has also learned an immense 



282 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

number of correspondences between the different senses, so that 
he no longer needs to feel of most things he sees, in order to 
know, as much as he wishes, of how they will feel, or to strike 
or taste them, to know how they will sound or taste. Yet there 
are many appearances and correspondences which he does not 
know very well, and hence, as compared with adults, he is still 
at considerable disadvantage in judging objects. He also fails 
to note fine distinctions unless necessity requires it, for very 
different sensations have nearly the same practical meaning to 
him. 

The necessity of identifying an object by means of sensations 
suggesting its ''true appearance," rather than by the exact 
sensations it gives, together with the limited power of discrimina- 
tion which children have, renders them very suggestible, or, in 
other words, undiscriminating as to whether a sensation is 
actually experienced or only called up by other sensations. 
Small found, that of children in the first grade about nine out of 
ten could be made to think that they experienced sensations of 
taste, smell, temperature, and visual movements, when no such 
sensations were given them; while the proportion that could 
thus be deceived, became very much smaller in the higher grades. 
The author's tests with ink spots also showed that critical judg- 
ment becomes more prominent than suggestibility in the fourth, 
fifth, and sixth grades. 

On the other hand, the habit of the adult mind of looking 
only for essential characteristics may lead him into error when 
the conditions or his purposes change. For example, it is very 
hard for one who has been reading rapidly for the purpose of 
getting thought, to read a printed page for the purpose of correct- 
ing the proof. If the thought and language are very familiar, 
as when the proof is of an article by one's self, the errors over- 
looked are likely to be very numerous. Pillsbury's tests show 
that familiar words misspelled are frequently read without the 



DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECT 283 

error being noticed, and that letters spelling nothing are often 
seen as words. Children, therefore, sometimes notice mistakes 
in spelling and changes in the arrangement of things which are 
overlooked by adults, because the tendency to perceive certain 
words and arrangements is not so strongly developed in them. 

Since the purpose of perception is to identify objects and make 
the proper reaction to them, and since the characteristics to be 
noted differ according to the end in view, quickness and accuracy 
in perception depend on discrimination in relation to the end to 
be gained. Definiteness and accuracy of perception can, there- 
fore, only be developed by practice in perceiving for a purpose. 
Careful discrimination of sensations, analysis, and the discovery 
of essential characteristics, and the learning of what character- 
istics go together, so that when one is experienced, others may 
be inferred, are the natural results of efforts to obtain practical 
ends. For example, in learning to tell when watermelons are 
ripe, the color, hardness, sound, and appearance of the melon 
and of the curl are discriminated, and their connection with the 
inside appearance and taste of the melon is noted. Or, again, 
in trying to build a house with blocks so that it will stand and 
look pretty, careful discrimination of form, position, size, and 
color of the blocks, and of their relation to each other, is neces- 
sary. Similar statements are true of nearly all games, plays, and 
construction in which children engage, as well as in drawing, 
writing, and all affairs of practical life. 

The function of the teacher in such training is principally 
to put before the child interesting and definite things to be done 
or found out, and to occasionally direct his attention toward 
essential characteristics so that habits of analytic and concentrated 
attention will be developed. This gives a training in perception 
not to be gained by any series of exercises for the special purpose 
of training the senses only. 

Since such training of perception is, in the nature of the case, 



284 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

special as regards the purposes directing it, general training in 
perception can be secured only by getting children interested 
not only in many things, but in many things from various points 
of view, as the practical, scientific, aesthetic. 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE POWER TO IMAGE 

True images are formed only when an object not present is 
represented, as when a child recognizes that some person or ob- 
ject is not in the usual place. Language is probably an impor- 
tant factor in developing such images : the sound of the word 
"dog," being closely associated with the animal, calls up a 
visual image of him just as his barking does. Words are for 
some time almost as closely associated with objects as are the 
sensations concerned in their perception. The name of an object 
is really, to the child, a part of his perception of the object; 
hence, it is not strange that a Httle boy put a curl at the end of 
the word "dog" he had written, to represent the tail, or that a 
little girl of three and a half readily learned the script word 
"cow," because the finishing stroke of the last letter looked to 
her like a horn or "hook," as she called it. 

After a child has gained the power to form mental images, he 
takes much the same pleasure in forming them that he showed a 
little earHer in getting sensations of all kinds. His first interest 
in stories is largely the pleasure of forming mental pictures of 
all the famiHar objects and acts named. It is some time before 
the connection of the parts of the story is of much significance to 
him. 

By the time the child is three or four years old, the parts of 
short stories are connected so as to give a pretty good under- 
standing of the story as a whole. This means that the mental 
grasp and power of constructive imagination is developed so 
that he can combine mentally several acts and images according 
to verbal direction. 



DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECT 285 

Soon the child recognizes his power in this direction, and 
begins to combine mental images according to his own ideas. 
He now experiences something of the same pleasure that he felt 
when he got beyond the stage in which sensations were changed 
for him by the action of other people, into the stage in which 
he effected the changes for himself by his own movements. 
His daily sensory activities have lost the charm of novelty, the 
stories told him have directed his imagining in a way that is 
new and pleasurable, yet this pleasure is dependent upon the 
will of others ; hence, it is an important epoch in the child's 
development when he learns that he can use the power of free 
creative imagination, and experience whatever combinations of 
mental images he wishes, independent of his surroundings and of 
the action of other people. It is not strange, therefore, that 
some children for several years live a large part of the time in this 
free imaginary world, which they people with toys, animals, and 
imaginary companions which conform to the will of their creator. 

This imaginary world may seem as real and more important 
to thC' child than the world of solid reality ; hence to tell what 
takes place in it is more pleasurable than to describe uninterest- 
ing realities. He tells imaginary experiences as naturally as an 
adult tells a dream, and no moral significance should be attached 
to the child's stories until he distinguishes between the experiences 
of the two worlds and learns to appreciate the desirability of 
making such distinction clear in all that he tells. 

The child's images are often more vivid (at least as compared 
with the original perceptions) than in later life. Some children 
have difficulty in distinguishing images from percepts, so that 
their images are in reality hallucinations. It is probable that 
after definite standards of ''true appearances" have been es- 
tablished, images usually become less vivid with increased age, 
except at about fourteen or fifteen, when images are for a time 
probably more vivid. 



286 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

One reason for decreased vividness of images is that one finds 
it necessary to note class rather than individual characteristics 
as he meets with many varieties. For example, lilies or turnips 
are easily pictured, so long as only white ones are known, and 
officers are easily imaged so long as only a few large, blue-coated 
policemen have been seen ; but when many varieties have been 
met with, mental images are a less satisfactory means of thinking 
of each class of objects. The increase in vividness of images at 
fourteen or fifteen is probably correlated with physiological and 
emotional changes. After puberty, images become more or less 
vivid, according to the nature of one's mental operations. A 
student of an abstract subject is likely to image less, and an 
artist or anatomist, more vividly and definitely. 

The studies of Phillips and others show that many peculiar 
number, form, and color associations originate in the early years, 
usually before entering school. 

As regards accuracy of images, the results depend upon interest 
and practice. Wolfe found that younger children represented 
the size of pieces of silver money, of bills, areas of circles, and 
length of lines in inches, more accurately than either the fourth 
grade or the university students. The author's own studies, 
also, indicated that there is little difference with age as regards 
judgments of the size of a quart measure, distance apart of 
carriage wheels, number of wings and legs of a fly, etc. On the 
other hand, the power to image words, as shown by ability to 
spell, grows with age during school life. 

As to kind of images most used, observation does not confirm 
the a priori view that taste and smell are more prominent in 
the mental life of the child than of the adult, for young children 
discriminate poorly with those senses, and are readily drawn 
from them by stimulating the eye or the ear. It is not likely, 
therefore, that they play much part in the child's mental imagery, 
especially as his chief food, milk, has little taste or odor. In 



DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECT 287 

general, for young persons making much use of visual language, 
pictures, maps, and diagrams, the changes in kind of imagery 
are from the motor and auditory to the visual. According to 
Smedley, the climax of ability to reproduce auditory numbers 
is reached between thirteen and fourteen, and for visual numbers, 
between seventeen and eighteen. The experience which the 
child has in the schoolroom of learning a visual language, learning 
visual signs for numbers, of studying things by means of pictures 
and diagrams, and of being required to perform mathematical 
and other operations by means of visual images, develops the 
tendency to represent everything visually. In the lower grades 
the child's words and numbers are auditory and motor ; but as 
he reaches maturity, visual words and figures become more 
prominent, until finally adults can often understand visual 
language much better than auditory. 



GROWTH OF CONSTRUCTIVE IMAGINATION 

Constructive imagination depends for its development upon 
(i) the acquisition of mental images, (2) attention, or power of 
control of images, and (3) mental grasp. 

(i) As bricks could not be made without straw, so construc- 
tive imagination cannot act without mental images. 

(2) Power of attention, or control of mental images, is no less 
necessary. Constructive imagination differs from reproductive 
imagination or memory, inasmuch as images are not combined 
as they were in the original experience ; and from creative im- 
agination, in that the mode of combining images is not de- 
termined by the choice or the habits of the one imaging, but by 
the directions of another. Considerable power of attention or 
voluntary control, therefore, is necessary. In listening to or 
reading a description of a house, for example, one must not give 
it color, size, position, material, etc., according to his more 



288 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

usual experience or his own taste, but picture each according 
to the description as he hears or reads the words. 

The disposition of mental images is difficult to the child, for 
much the same reasons as is accurate control of movements. 
Yet if the words are familiar, the subject interesting, the ar- 
rangement of the ideas in accordance with the child's habits of 
thinking, and the rate neither too fast nor too slow, the words 
direct his attention so that little effort on his part is necessary. 
This experience in thus having his attention directed, prepares 
him to direct his attention according to the words, when not so 
interesting or so well arranged. 

(3) Yet, however well the child's attention may be directed, 
his mental grasp is limited ; hence, complicated descriptions, 
which require that a number of things shall be kept in the mind 
at once, in order that they may be properly related, are beyond 
a child's powers. For these reasons, the abihty of children to 
draw or do things according to direction is limited. The kinder- 
garten child may be able to place the base of a triangle on the 
top side of a square ; but if there are several figures and positions, 
he is unable to hold all the images in mind so as to construct the 
figure. For the same reason primary children are unable to 
make compHcated things, comprehend long sentences, appreciate 
stories having many characters and incidents, or perform prob- 
lems involving several numbers or conditions. 

Since mental grasp in any line increases as ideas in that par- 
ticular line become more familiar, the power of constructive im- 
agination may increase much more in some lines than in others. 
A child, therefore, who can readily represent, visually, certain 
combinations of figures, lines, or letters, may fail in the less famil- 
iar ones, or find it hard to represent the result of combining two 
or more sounds, and hence be slow in word building. 

The constructive imagination is called into play by stories, 
reading, arithmetic, geography, and history, providing they are 



DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECT 289 

taught as they should be, and by directions such as are given 
in physical exercises. The proper understanding of lessons, 
and the development of accurate constructive imagination, can- 
not be brought about by allowing the pupil to perceive every 
object and combination every time, but by having them partly 
imaged and partly shown, then imaged by the help of simple 
pictures, diagrams, or gestures, and finally by means of words only. 

DEVELOPMENT OF CREATIVE IMAGINATION 

The essentials of creative imagination, aside from abundance 
of images from past experiences, are free activity and the im- 
pulse to create stirred by interest. 

(i) Free activity means either spontaneous activity or ac- 
tivity whose excitant is so subtle that it is not discernible. To put 
it in physiological terms, nervous impulses tend to diffuse them- 
selves to parts that have not been active, or to pass irregularly 
from one established center of activity to another. If there is 
a strong tendency to such activity, many unusual combinations 
of mental images will result, a large portion of which may be 
merely absurd or grotesque (as they usually are in dreams), but 
some of which are likely to be artistic or useful. 

Careful training, which results in definite ideas and particular 
ways of doing things, if continued for a long time, checks the 
tendency to free activity and may destroy the power of creative 
imagination. It is for this reason that untrained men like 
Edison are often the most original. Definite training, with some 
imitation of various models, gives a good basis for the develop- 
ment of the creative imagination ; but the training and the imi- 
tation must be varied and not too long continued in one line, 
or the material becomes ''set" by habit, and can be arranged 
only in the customary ways. An artist, for example, who 
studies and imitates one school of painting only, for years, can 
never become an original painter. 
u 



2 go FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

(2) The impulse to create cannot be directly produced by 
training, since it comes from instinctive tendencies to construct 
and express, stirred by various emotions. It is especially strong 
when new experiences are met or new instincts come into prom- 
inence. One of the first emotions to stir the imagination is 
often that of fear, especially when the child is alone in the dark. 
Later the more aesthetic emotions stimulate the imagination. 
The earliest creations are likely to be expressed in actions, 
especially in representative or dramatic plays, and in construc- 
tions, at first with blocks, then in making toys, forts, and machines. 
After several years of school life, oral language, music, and draw- 
ing, and a little later, written language, are the principal media 
of expression. 

The subjects with which creative imagination deals are various, 
but are evidently determined by the emotional and instinctive 
interests prominent at different ages. Moreover, new experiences 
or ideas of one age become entirely familiar a little later, and 
hence do not excite the imagination unless they are brought into 
new relations. It is, therefore, impossible to say just what 
exercises are best to develop the creative imagination of a child 
or group of children, unless one knows the children ; but we may 
say, in general, that whatever stirs the emotions and excites a 
desire to do something stimulates imagination, and that previous 
experiences in perceiving good models, and in imitating, express- 
ing, and constructing, furnish the conditions for its effective use. 
For example, to tell a child to write an autobiography of an oak 
tree when he knows little about how the oak tree grows, and less 
about what an autobiography is, would be absurd ; but if he had 
recently heard several biographies, and had been studying about 
acorns and oaks, it is not improbable that he would have both 
the impulse and the necessary training that would lead him to 
write an imaginative autobiography. His previous experience 
in writing, as a mechanical act and as a means of expressing his 



DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECT 291 

own ideas, and his interest in autobiographies and in the growth 
of oaks, together with the special motive for expression, as, for 
example, the desire to write a story that will please mamma when 
it is taken home, will, with other things too numerous and subtle 
to enumerate, influence the activity of creating and expressing. 

Notwithstanding the fact that creative imagination is more 
dependent upon individuality, mood, and special circumstances 
than any other mental activity that may be classed as intellec- 
tual, yet there is nothing in mental life more certainly character- 
istic for different ages than the nature of the fancies as new 
instincts develop and emotional interests change. The boy's 
day dreams of a dog and a cart have no attraction for the youth 
who pictures himself rescuing a beautiful maiden, or for the 
business man, politician, or artist who dreams of his plans and 
successes. Learoyd and Calkins, who secured by inquiry an 
account of continued stories carried on in the minds of one 
hundred and seventy-five persons, found that in the younger 
years such stories were usually concerned with fairies and martyr- 
doms, in late childhood and youth with romance and adventure, 
and in maturer years with practical affairs. 

DEVELOPMENT OF MEMORY 

As already shown, mental grasp or memory span, in reproduc- 
ing impressions just received, increases with age in a marked 
degree. The increase in power to recall after an interval of time, 
which is more properly called memory, is much less. Jastrow 
found that university students remembered only i or 2 per 
cent more words after an interval of three days than high school 
students five years younger. The author's tests showed little 
difference in the reproduction, after three days, of words seen or 
heard and objects shown, by children from the third grade 
up to college students, except that the memory of the older 
persons was more voluntary and less ready and spontaneous. 



292 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

Shaw found that a story consisting of three hundred and twenty- 
four words, and nearly half as many distinct facts, was repro- 
duced more than twice as fully by pupils of the ninth grade as 
in the lowest grade tested, and as well or better than by high 
school or university students. He counted as correct, facts 
expressed in other words than those given in the story. The 
greater difference with age in this test, compared with others, is 
probably because it involved associations of ideas instead of 
mere retention of impressions. If we take into account the 
slight mental grasp of the children and the length of time re- 
quired for them to express what they remembered in writing, 
the difference in memory of impressions is almost nothing, while 
in memory involving associations of ideas it is somewhat greater. 
The plasticity of the child's brain is probably greater than that 
of the adult and the retentiveness nearly as great. The differ- 
ence in the memory of children and adults is, therefore, a differ- 
ence in kind rather than in degree, and is caused largely by 
experience. Meuman claims that retentiveness is greatest at 
the dawn of adolescence, but his results may be explained by the 
fact that there is better concentration on impressions at this age 
than earlier, and less abstraction from particulars than later. 
Nothing that can be used as a memory test is as new for the adult 
as it is for the child. The adult already knows a part of what 
he is given to remember, or, in other words, certain brain centers 
have already had practice in reproducing such impressions. In 
the adult brain also, where many centers are already well prac- 
ticed, new impressions readily run into the old channels ; hence 
impressions are easily classified, and their centers readily awak- 
ened to activity again because of their connection with centers 
frequently called into action. Finally, the adult mind has more 
power of voluntary attention, both in receiving impressions and 
in trying to reproduce them by holding in mind some idea con- 
nected with them. As a consequence, the spontaneous and un- 



DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECT 293 

classified memories of adults are not better than those of children, 
if they are as good, while their voluntary and systematic memories 
are usually better. 

The above differences are most marked between children and 
well-educated adults, while adults without systematic training 
differ but little from children in this respect. The trained mind 
has much greater power of attention, and a much more definite 
system of classified ideas, or, in physiological terms, more dis- 
tinct centers of activity and paths of association. Development 
of memory, is, therefore, largely a matter of training in habits of 
attention and in methods of classifying impressions. Most im- 
provement in memory is special, certain classes of things only 
being attended to, classified, and remembered, while others are 
unnoticed, and consequently not remembered. If accounts of 
discoveries or improvements in his special Une are read, re- 
spectively, by a historian, a botanist, a chemist, a psychologist, 
a bicyclist, a civil engineer, or a doctor, each readily attends to, 
classifies, and remembers the facts of his specialty; but all 
would experience great difiiculty if they exchanged memory 
materials. So special is the development of power in these 
directions, that one man may remember figures indicating dates 
readily, but utterly fail to remember a list of prices readily 
recalled and quoted to him by a business man. One mathema- 
tician who could repeat in order as high as fifty-two figures, 
could not repeat more than eight or nine letters given orally as 
were the figures. 

Memory for isolated impressions, and in fact for nearly all 
things that are largely sensory, reaches its climax early in the 
teens. The plasticity of the brain probably decreases after 
puberty, and further improvement in memory is special, con- 
ceptional, associative, and only along Hnes in which one has 
already started ; while the tendency, and in part the ability, 
to acquire and retain facts in other Hnes, after a while decreases. 



294 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

until in old age the number of facts acquired each year is very 
much less than the number forgotten. 

DEVELOPMENT OF CONCEPTS 

The child is largely engaged in sense perception, and thus his 
thought processes are not far removed or easily distinguished 
from his sense activities. The sight of its mother may produce 
in a child of six months some expectation of auditory, tactile, and 
other sensations which have been previously experienced in 
connection with seeing her. There is, however, probably no 
distinction or separate representation of each of these sensa- 
tions ; yet other persons, as well as the mother, are distinguished 
from chairs, beds, and other inanimate objects, and call up a 
different class of images. There must therefore be the beginning 
of the concept of a class of objects which we know as persons, 
with common characteristics differing from those of inanimate 
things. 

This crude form of concept, much like that gained by animals, 
may be formed without language. This must have been the 
case when a child, less than a year old, who was shown a bird, 
turned and looked at a stuffed bird in the room, and when another 
child, a little over a year old, showed surprise and fear at an 
envelope which seemed to move of itself, which was contrary 
to her idea of that class of objects. A child can sort blocks, 
putting those of a color together, before he can point to, or 
give them as they are named. In the case of M. this was true 
for a year. He also forms class ideas before he uses class names. 
For example, men are distinguished from other objects, and 
from women and children, by the particular name ''papa," but 
they are not all treated as that particular individual is ; hence 
papa is not only perceived as an individual, but there is a crude 
concept of the class to which he belongs. There can be no 
doubt, however, that language is an aid in the development of 



DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECT 295 

thought, and a necessary factor in all general and abstract think- 
ing. There is nothing in general and abstract concepts such as 
*^ organism" or ''color," by which they can be recalled or indi- 
cated, except a sign or symbol of some kind which can be asso- 
ciated with the common element in the variety of experiences 
giving rise to the concepts. A word is a convenient mode of 
reacting to all members of a class of objects, and therefore an 
important part of the concept, as well as a means of recalling 
and expressing it. 

The first few hundred words and concepts are gotten by 
children through direct association with objects and experiences. 
These first words help in gaining other concepts and words as 
the child hears them in remarks and stories, and in answers to 
his questions. Often for several years the child's questions 
show that he is learning the general qualities of things of which 
he is trying to form concepts, e.g., "Is iron heavier than wood?" 
"Will iron burn?" "Is there anything stronger than iron?" 
"Where do we get iron?" or again, "What do policemen do?" 
' ' Where do they live ? " "How strong is a policeman ? " " Is he 
stronger than you ? " "Do they always have a club ? " In school, 
formal definitions, special study, and reading become important 
means of acquiring concepts and making them more definite. 

Three degrees of definiteness of concepts may be named : 
(i) One in which a class of objects can usually be distinguished 
from other classes in ordinary experience, but whose distinguish- 
ing qualities have not been picked out or named, as when a child 
can tell dogs and cats apart, but cannot state the difference. 
(2) A stage in which one or more of the most evident characteris- 
tics which distinguish one class of objects from other classes, 
as, dogs "bark" and cats "mew," may be stated. (3) Perfect 
concepts in which all the distinguishing characteristics can be 
named, or, in other words, when a scientific definition can be 
given, as, "A parallelogram is a plane figure whose opposite 



296 



FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 



sides are parallel and equal." A young child's concepts are all 
of the first degree, yet the most cultivated man probably has 
some of the first type, and a good many of the second; while 
few of his concepts outside of the lines to which he has given 
special study are of the third degree. 

The difficult task of finding what concepts of common things, 
of the second degree of definiteness, are possessed by children 
upon entering school, has been attempted in Berlin, Boston, 
and other places. As a result of such study, Dr. Hall concludes : 
(i) ''There is next to nothing of pedagogic value, the knowledge 
of which is safe to assume, at the outset of school life. (2) The 
best preparation parents can give their children for good school 
training is to make them acquainted with natural objects, es- 
pecially with sights and sounds of the country. (3) Every 
teacher, on starting with a new class, or in a new locality, to 
make sure that his efforts along some lines are not utterly lost, 
should undertake to explore carefully, section by section, chil- 
dren's minds with all the tact and ingenuity he can command 
and acquire, to determine exactly what is already known. 
(4) The concepts that are most common in the children of a 
given locaHty are the earhest to be acquired, while the rarer 
ones are later." Some of the striking per cents of ignorance 
of the Boston children are as follows : — 



Robin 60.5 

Pig 47-5 

Chicken 33.5 

Elm tree 91.5 

Wrist 70.5 



Ankles 65.5 

Elbows 25.0 

Dew 78.0 

Woods 53. s 

Hill 28.0 



DEVELOPMENT OF REASONING 



The beginning of practical reasoning is found in the instinc- 
tive tendency to do under similar conditions what has been done 
previously with favorable results, and to refrain from doing what 



i 



DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECT 297 

has brought unfavorable results. A child, when uncomfortable, 
instinctively cries, and after a few months, if a continuation and 
increase of crying effort has always been followed by some one's 
coming to the rescue, habit establishes this method of obtain- 
ing relief. Some months later the child not only has this physio- 
logical tendency, but he is conscious of crying as one method 
of getting things, in much the same way that he is conscious of 
reaching, as a means of getting objects. A year or two later the 
child may be so conscious of crying as a means which has secured 
desired ends, that he makes the cry with a purpose, instead of 
merely allowing it free course or increasing the instinctive 
tendency to cry. In this the child's reasoning is not much 
beyond that of an intelligent dog which lies down, rolls over, 
or "speaks" for a piece of bread. 

In all the child's experiences during the first few years, as he 
learns to reach for things, keep them from falling, maintain his 
own equihbrium in various positions, walk, climb, fall without 
getting hurt, avoid the stove, use a spoon, or pile up blocks, 
instinct and habit are the basis of the practical reason which is 
developing in a remarkable degree. 

On the conscious side the child is guided by sensations, per- 
cepts, and images of particular experiences that were like those 
now occurring. He usually knows practically that things have 
to be held or something put under them or they will fall, by the 
middle of the second year ; but it is many years before he actually 
thinks the general truth, "unsupported bodies fall," though he 
soon has representations of particular, unsupported bodies fall- 
ing. Hence, though children make practical inferences at an 
early age, it is often a long time before they analyze and gen- 
eralize so as to reason in an abstract way. 

As soon as children begin to learn language they are implicitly 
generalizing, classifying, and reasoning as they apply the words 
to new objects. Probably not until between three and four 



298 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

years of age do children begin to consciously and explicitly general- 
ize, and then the generalization consists, at first, of several similar 
particulars, as the following remarks of a Httle girl when about 
three and a half years old indicate. After having often asked 
and been answered as to where various things came from, she 
asked, ''Where did I come from?" and was answered, "You 
grew." Later she asked: ''Where did papa come from?" 
"Where did mamma come from?" "Where did grandma come 
from?" Later when told the baby had two legs, she asked: 
"How many legs has papa?" "How many legs has mamma?" 
and so on for the several members of the family. At this time 
general statements did not satisfy her. When told she did 
things for papa, she asked, "What do I do for you?" and would 
not be satisfied with the answer, "Lots of things," till a particu- 
lar thing, "You get the paper for me," was named. A few days 
later such remarks as the following were common: "When I 
get big I will go to the gymnasium, the' library, the normal 
school, kindergarten and lots of places ^''^ showing that her ideas 
were getting sKghtly broader and more general than the partic- 
ulars named. 

A little later a conscious attempt to generalize and classify 
was indicated by the following: "The coffee pot won't break, 
but the cup will break and the saucer will break and the sauce 
dish will break," etc. The crudeness of her ideas, however, 
was shown by the fact that when questioned, she said that the 
silver sugar bowl and pitcher, and even a spoon would break, 
notwithstanding she had often dropped spoons without their 
breaking. Practically, she handled cups and spoons differently ; 
but when she talked of them consciously, no memory of different 
experiences with them occurred to her to prevent her putting 
them both in the class of breakables. 

In all the earlier attempts at reasoning, images of past ex- 
periences compose most of the "train of reasoning," and personal 



DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECT 299 

actions or commands to self are transferred to others, or of 
others to self, as the following examples illustrate. To papa, 
*'You eat something else first, then you can have some cake." 
Having been told that she could have something when it was 
noon, she later asked, "Has noon gone?" — ''No, noon is 
coming." — ''Has noon footies?" — "No." — "How does the 
noon come, then?" perhaps thinking vaguely of other ways of 
coming, as by means of wheels. It was explained to her that we 
called it noon when the sun got up high so we had to look up 
straight to see it. Several times after that on cloudy days she 
said at dinner that it was not noon, for she could not see the sun, 
which shows how largely her "thoughts" consisted of definite 
sensations and images. One day the following conversation 
between her and her father occurred : "When I get big, I will 
pop the corn and you won't have to do it, will you?" — "No." 
— "You will be a little girl then, won't you?" — "No." — 
"Yes, you will." She had previously learned that she would get 
big, and that papa had been little, and she had often changed 
places with others, as, "You hide now, and I'll find you," and 
so she probably pictured herself as a big man popping corn, 
and papa as a little girl standing by as she was then. 

The child is continually gaining new truths that are general 
in the sense that they can be applied to a number of particulars ; 
his conceptions are increasing in number and passing from the 
first to the second stage of definiteness, as he becomes conscious 
of common characteristics and important differences in various 
classes of objects ; and he is continually trying to find out and 
apply general truths, though he often discovers that their 
application is more Hmited than he expected, as when he goes out 
in the rain so he will grow, or plants money or a ring expecting 
it to produce more. 

In the following from a boy of four who has an unusual tend- 
ency to generalize, the induction seemed to be conscious: 



300 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

^'All things that will run, like water and milk, will wet, won't 
they, papa?" 

The child gets his general truths (i) from practical experiences, 
without being conscious of them as general truths ; (2) from 
adults, perhaps in answers to such questions as: ''Where do 
apples come from?" "What are you putting that pie in the 
stove for?" "What is it made of?" "What makes flowers 
grow?" and (3) from his own generalizations and inductions, 
though these are often more a recognition of similarity of par- 
ticulars than genuine abstract generalizations. In other words, 
he goes from one particular to another, instead of reaching a 
generalization inductively, then applying it deductively as does 
the logician. For example, a boy of five who saw white caps 
in the water overflowing a meadow, and asked, "Is there soap 
under every one of those waves?" evidently remembered other 
appearances like that, produced by soap in water. He thought 
of the same cause in this case without going through any such 
logical course of reasoning as the following: (i) (inductive) 
"I have observed such appearances produced in water by soap 
and by nothing else. What is true of the cases I have observed 
is true of all ; therefore, such white stuff on the water is always 
produced by soap." (2) (deductive) "White stuff on the water 
is always caused by soap; that water has white stuff on it, 
therefore there must be soap in it." 

Whatever the source of the general truth involved in a child's 
reasoning, he is likely to apply it not only to the class of objects 
or conditions to which it belongs, but also to others, and many of 
his mistakes in reasoning are due to this fact. This is not because 
his generalizations are so wide, as one might think, but because 
they are so indefinite and undiscriminating, as are also the con- 
cepts with which they are concerned ; hence as soon as he notes 
similarity to something familiar, and pictures what was true of 
it, he expects that the same will be true of what seems like it. 



DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECT 301 

This is true even when the similarity is only in name. For 
example, a little girl of five, who had borrowed an eraser of a 
young lady several times, was told that a plant in the window 
was a rubber plant, when she quickly exclaimed, ^'Oh, that's 
why you always have so many rubbers, isn't it?" 

In other instances the characteristic to which the truth is 
attached is not an essential one; hence the truth is wrongly 
and often too narrowly applied, as when a boy of eight said, 
^'You should not call him Mr., he is not married yet." In 
reality this and many similar mistakes come from too wide a 
generalization previously made, which in this case probably was, 
women who are married change their title ; hence all persons do so. 

The numerous mistakes in reasoning which a child makes often 
lead to his being laughed at, and this tends to discourage him 
somewhat in original thinking, and to make him rely more upon 
others for his general truths. 

When he enters school the conditions are usually unfavorable 
for developing his power and tendency to reason. Before this, 
his practical reason was exercised in his plays and experiences 
with real objects and situations, and his conclusions were usually 
of immediate value to him. Though some of his reasoning had 
been conscious, and some of his thinking animated by pure 
curiosity, yet much of it had been influenced by practical interest 
of some kind, while nearly all of it had been concerned with 
persons, things, and incidents in his immediate environment. 
In school, conscious reasoning is usually appealed to, and there 
are almost no opportunities for the child to use his practical 
reason in doing things. The school studies, especially arith- 
metic, are supposed to be adapted to the development of the 
child's reason; but the appeal is almost wholly to conscious 
reasoning, whic-h, unaided by the practical reason and the stim- 
ulus of interest in the conclusions which always accompanies 
reasoning in acts instead of in thought, is not very vigorous. 



302 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

His arithmetical thinking is also very imperfect because it 
is not usually appealed to sufficiently through the senses and 
through images of definite individual experiences, which, as we 
have already seen, naturally occupy a large place in a child's 
reasoning. So many truths are presented to him, and they are 
applied so often without the results or conclusions having any 
bearing upon his present actions, that he does not care particularly 
what the truth is, or how it is applied, providing he can say or 
do what will satisfy the teacher. In short, the effect of school life 
is usually inimical to the activity of reasoning, at least for a time. 

The ordinary child in the public school exercises his practical 
reason less in the first half-dozen years of school life than does 
the ordinary street urchin. Yet the schoolboy acquires a great 
many valuable concepts and general truths, and forms habits of 
orderly analysis and synthesis which enable him, when his 
reason awakens to full activity again (as it is likely to do in his 
teens), to far surpass the street urchin, not only in more abstract 
reasoning, but, with some practice, in the reasoning involved in 
practical affairs. The training in the school is not, therefore, 
valueless, but it produces a break in the development of reasoning 
which is sometimes never even apparently repaired. 

Naturally, reasoning is first instinctive, sensory, and practical, 
then conscious, imaginative, and individual, and finally abstract, 
analytic, and general. The school unsuccessfully seeks to develop 
the last form of reasoning before the others, which are a necessary 
basis for it, are sufficiently developed. 

After about twelve years of age, a child's interests usually 
broaden so that he is no longer almost wholly concerned with 
his own affairs and with particular results, but begins to develop 
a social and speculative interest in groups of persons and classes 
of objects and events. By this time the child has also acquired 
enough concepts and general truths, together with the power of 
analyzing and discriminating difference and likeness, so that he 



DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECT 303 

now has the ability as well as the impulse to reason in a general 
and abstract way concerning persons in history, words in lan- 
guage, and things in science. 

What is needed more than anything else to develop the reason- 
ing power of children in school is that they shall have more 
opportunity to work out for themselves methods of doing things 
which they are immediately interested in doing, and more practice 
in discovering the results of particular acts and conditions, 
before they are expected to reason in an abstract way about 
classes of things in which they have no immediate or practical 
interest. It is also important, especially in arithmetic, that they 
shall have much practice in applying general truths to various 
classes of problems, without anything to show them which general 
truth will fit each particular case. In other words, their need is 
not more general truths, but more practice in discerning essential 
characteristics and applying truths. 

Exercises for Students 

1. If similarity in mental processes helps one person in understanding 
another, are teachers who are studying some new subject likely to succeed 
better in teaching than those who are not? Why? 

2. Give a number of illustrations of special training which does or does 
not increase general mental power. 

3. As a means of showing that our perceptions become definite regarding 
familiar things, note the fact that a figure like the accompanying one may 
be seen in two or three defimite and familiar ways, but 
not in any intermediate or confused way. Note, also, 
how easy it is to hear sounds and nonsense syllables 
as words. Is this true to the same extent of children? 

4. Give illustrations of differences in the discrimi- 
nation of individuals, and indicate how far they may be 
explained by special knowledge and practice. 

5. Test first or second grade children and adults by 
having them make straight lines, then words, as many 
times as possible in a minute, and note the difference in the two cases in 
the rate of children and adults and the causes of the difference. 




304 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

6. Report tests and observations showing difference in mental grasp of 
children and adults. 

7. Give illustrations showing that differences in the perceptive power of 
adults may be as great as are to be found between children and adults. 

8. Why do people who have never studied drawing usually say that a 
circle looks the same in all positions ? Give other illustrations of the ignor- 
ing of variations in sensations, in perceiving objects as the same. 

9. Have students experiment and report on weight and size illusions. 

10. Show children successively sticks of the following length in inches 
I, i^, 2, 2^, 3, 3^, 4, 4, 4, 4, and see if they get the suggestion, that each line 
is to be longer than each of the preceding. Show a series of Hnes drawn on 
paper, of the above lengths, and ask the children to point to one three inches 
long, then just as the child is doing so, say, " Are you sure you are right? " 
Report other observations and experiments showing the greater suggesti- 
bility of children as compared with adults. 

11. Show to adults for a moment the name of your city or some other 
familiar word, with some letters omitted and similar ones substituted, and 
see if familiarity with the words does not lead to error. Report other obser- 
vations and experiments showing that knowledge and habit may lead to error. 

12. To get an idea of how large a part purpose plays in perception, look 
at a book with one after another of the following purposes : to know the 
name and author, to know regarding the capitalization of letters, the size 
of letters, spacing and design on the back, to determine the quality of the 
binding as to material and color, to see if the book is perfectly new and clean, 
to see if its edge is smooth and straight so it can be used in place of a ruler, to 
determine its size in inches, to judge of the quality of the paper. Find other 
illustrations of how the purpose in perceiving, rather than the mere power 
of discrimination, determines what shall be perceived. 

13. Is there any relation between manual training and sense training? 
Explain fully. 

14. Give illustrations of the imaging power of children. 

15. Is your image of a wooded hill that you have seen many times at 
various seasons of the year as definite and vivid as some landscapes you have 
seen only a few times? Give other illustrations showing how increased 
experience may lead to less definiteness and vividness of images. 

16. Report from experience, observation, or reading, instances of letters 
or numbers, which always call up images of certain colors or forms. 

17. Is it better to tell children of the second, third, or fourth grades some- 
thing you wish them to remember, or to have them read it? Why? 



DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECT 305 

18. Try with children and adults some such experiment as the following. 
Say, " Make a dot two inches from the top of the page and one inch from the 
left edge, then from it draw a line to the right two inches long, then down- 
ward three inches, then to the left one inch, then upward an inch, then to the 
dot first made," and see how well they follow directions ; or say, " Think of a 
square with a triangle on top with point upward, a circle underneath, and 
an oblong on each side with ends next the side of the square." 

19. Illustrate from school work, successes or failures of children due to 
good or poor constructive imagination. 

20. What is the effect on the creative imagination of always telling 
children not only what to do, but also just how to do it ? 

21. Mention a number of exercises that you think would give good train- 
ing to the creative imagination, in which you recognize a stage of imitation 
and practice, and another stage of free creation, indicating the grade to 
which these exercises would be most suitable. 

22. Find how many words a child of two uses, as an indication of the 
number of concepts he has. 

2T,. Attempt to determine what concepts of common things, of the second 
degree of definiteness, a child of from four to six has. 

24. It will be interesting for students to try to gain some idea of how 
many concepts they have by counting the words familiar to them in a hst 
of one or more hundred words taken by chance from the dictionary, e.g., 
the first word on every fourth page, and estimating their total vocabulary. 

25. Give a number of instances of childish reasoning from observation 
or reading, and explain the modes of reaching a conclusion in each case. 

26. Give illustrations of work in school studies, so planned that the rea- 
soning may be simply a means to an end the child desires to reach. 

27. Give such problems as these to children, and explain why they make 
mistakes. " A boy walked directly east three miles, then directly west 
three miles. How far was he from where he started?" "If a stalk of 
corn two feet high grows two feet in the month of July, how much will a 
peach tree three feet high grow in the same time? " 

28. Algebra may be described as arithmetic generalized. Why is it better 
suited for older pupils than arithmetic? 

29. Have children find out what you are thinking of by asking questions 
that you answer by yes or no. Notice how many of their questions are 
particular or ignore former answers, and hence show lack of conceptional 
thought and reasoning. 

30. TeU a story, such as the following, with many contradictions in it, 

X 



3o6 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

and ask children to give their reasons for thinking it is or is not true. Notice 
in how few cases they put parts together so as to show their logical contra- 
dictions. " The water would not be very warm if it was winter " is a logical 
reason, while " His father would not have praised him " is merely reasoning 
according to probabilities. 

A Boy's First Fish 

One winter afternoon a boy went fishing in a lake a short distance from his 
home. He had a bent pin for a hook, and a thread for a line, which he 
fastened to a good strong pole. As soon as he threw the hook in, a fish took 
it in his mouth and started downstream. The boy began to pull, but his 
foot slipped and he fell into the river. He was frightened at first, but when 
he found that the river was shallow and the water very warm, he did not 
care, but held to the pole. He waded to the shore and pulled till the pole 
bent and almost broke before he could draw the fish out of the lake. When 
he got it out he saw that it was about eight inches long and he was very 
much pleased. He tried to catch more, but they would not take the hook. 
His hands got cold in the wintry wind, so he started home with the fish. 
He got very tired carrying the heavy fish so far, but forgot all about it when 
he got home, and his papa praised him for holding to the pole, and his 
mamma said the fish would make several nice meals for all of them. 

Note. A good review of the preceding portion of this book may be had 
by having students group the facts they have learned so as to show the stage 
of development reached at one, three, six, nine, twelve, fifteen, and eighteen 
and by observing and testing one or more children of the age chosen for 
special study. 

Suggestions for Reading 

On the general subject of intellectual development and training, see besides 
psychologies, Baldwin, Vol. I, pp. 301-332 ; Hinsdale, Studies in 
Education, chaps, ii and iii; and Ed. Rev., Vol. VHI, pp. 128-142; 
Judd, chaps, i and ii ; Compayre, Vol. I, chaps, vi and vii, Vol. II; 
Thorndike, Human Nature Club, chap, xv; Jr. Fed., Vol. XIV, pp. 
60-65 ; Thorndike and Woodworth, Psych. Rev., Vol. VIII, pp. 247- 
261, 384-395, 553-564; Aiken, " Methods of Mind Training " ; Allen, 
Jr. Fed., Vol. XIV, pp. 237-254; Bergstrom, Am. Jr. Fsych., Vol. V, 
pp. 356-369; Swift, Fed. Sem., Vol. X, pp. 3-22; Hugh, Fed. Sem., 
Vol. V, pp. 599-605 ; Bryan and Harter, Fsych. Rev., Vol. IV, pp. 27- 
53, Vol. VI, pp. 345-375 ; Andrews, Am. Jr. Fsych., Vol. XIV, pp. 121- 



DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECT 307 

149 ; Johnson, Yale Studies, Vol. VI, pp. 51-103 ; Swift, Am. Jr. Psych., 
Vol. XIV, pp. 201-251. 

On the senses and early intellectual development, consult Preyer, Shinn, 
Tracy, Moore. 

On discrimination, rate of mental activity, perception, suggestion, and illu- 
sions, read Kirkpatrick, Psych. Rev., Vol. VIII, pp. 563-577, Vol. VII, 
pp. 274-280; parts of Gilbert, Yale Studies, Vol. II, pp. 40-100; Iowa 
Univ. Studies, Vol. II, pp. 1-84 ; Christopher and Smedley's Reports 
of Child Study Investigations to the Chicago Board of Education; Judd, 
Psych. Rev., Vol. IX, pp. 27-39; Small, Ped. Sem., Vol. IV, pp. 176- 
220; N. W. Mo., Vol. IX, pp. 134-135; Sidis, Psychology of Sugges- 
tion; Bolton, Psych. Rev., Vol. VIII, pp. 537-548; Jastrow, Fact and 
Fable in Psychology, pp. 106-136, 275-295 ; Binet, Psych. Rev., Vol. VIII, 
pp. 610-616; Pillsbury, Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. VIII, pp. 315-393; 
Dressier, Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. VI, pp. 343-363 ; Seashore, Yale 
Studies, Vol. Ill, pp. 1-67 ; Iowa Studies, Vol. II, pp. 1-64. 

On mental images, see Galton, Pop. Sci. Mo., Vol. XV, p. 532 ; Vol. XVIII, 
p. 64, or consult his Human Faculty; Patrick, Pop. Sci. Mo., Vol. 
XXXIX, p. 761 ; Kirkpatrick, Science, October, 1893 ; Binet, Pop. 
Sci. Mo., Vol. LI, pp. 539-544; Bryan, N. E. A., 1893, pp. 779-781 ; 
Talbot, Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. VIII, pp. 414-417 ; Hall, F. H., Jr. Ped., 
Vol. XIV, pp. 214-223 ; N. E. A., 1897, pp. 621-628 ; Ch. S. Mo., Vol. 

VI, pp. 297-307; Wylie, Ped. Sem., Vol. IX, pp. 127-160; Jastrow, 
Fact and Fable in Psychology, pp. 337-370; Philipps, Am. Jr. Psych., 
Vol. VIII, pp. 506-527 ; Wolfe, Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. IX, pp. 137-166. 

On memory, see Colgrove, especially chap, v; Eldridge-Green, Memory 
and its Cultivation, Part I, chaps, vii and viii and Part II ; Waldstein, 
The Subconscious Self; Bolton, Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. IV, pp. 362-380; 
Shaw, Ped. Sem., Vol. IV, pp. 61-78 ; Kirkpatrick, Psych. Rev., Vol. 
I, pp. 602-609 ; Jastrow, Ed. Rev., Vol. II, pp. 442-452 ; Patrick, Ed. 
Rev., Vol. IV, pp. 463-474 ; Barnes, Studies in Ed., pp. 58-61 ; Jacobs, 
Mind, Vol. XII, pp. 75-82. 

On associative, creative, conceptive, and reasoning activities of children, see 
Bolton and Haskell, Ed. Rev., Vol. XV, pp. 474-499 ; Barnes, Studies 
in Ed., Vol. I, pp. 41-52 ; Vol. II, pp. 43-61, 373-387 ; Royce, Psych. 
Rev., Vol. V, pp. 1 13-144 ; Hall, Ped. Sem., Vol. I, pp. 139-173 ; Lindley, 
Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. VIII, pp. 431-493; Brown, Ped. Sem., Vol. II, 
pp. 358-396 ; Gale, Jr. Ch. and Adoles., July, 1902, pp. 149-174 ; Han- 
cock, Ed. Rev., Vol. XII, pp. 261-268 ; Learoyd, A7n. Jr. Psych., Vol. 

VII, pp. 86-90. 



3o8 



FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 





Later References 








Books 






Boas 


Kirkpatrick (i, 2, 


3) 


Sully 


Bolton 


Magnus 




Swift (3) 


Bonser 


Meuman 




Tanner 


Dumville 


Murray 




Thorndike (10) 


Hall 


Sandiford 




Urwick 


Hunt 


Simpson 




Whipple 


Judd (i & 2) 


Sinclair 




Winch 


King (i) 


Stern 







Articles 

Bailey, Thomas P. Mood in Monologue. Ped. Sem., 1913, Vol. 20, 

pp. 222-228. 
Brittain, Horace L. A Study in Imagination. Ped. Sem., 1907, Vol. 

14, pp. 137-207. 
Burnham, W. H. Hygiene of Home Study. Ped. Sem., 1905, Vol. 12, pp. 

213-230. 
Chamberlain, Alexander F. and Mrs. Studies of a Child. Ped. Sem., 

1904, Vol. II, pp. 264-291; 1905, Vol. 12, pp. 427-453; 1909, Vol. 

16, pp. 64-103. 
Chambers, Will G. How Words Get Meaning. Ped. Sem., 1904, Vol. 

II, pp. 30-50. 
Colvin, S. S., and Meyer, J. F. Imaginative Elements in the Written 

Work of School Children. Ped. Sem., 1906, Vol. 13, pp. 84-93. 
Colvin, S. S. The Ideational Types of School Children. Ped. Sem., 

1909, Vol. 16, pp. 314-323- 
Day, Leroy C. The Child God. Ped. Sem., 1914, Vol. 21, pp. 309-320. 
ElHson, L. Children's Capacity for Abstract Thought as Shown by 

Their Use of Language in the Definition of Abstract Terms. Am. Jr. 

Psychol., 1908, Vol. 19, pp. 253-260. 
Feingold, Gustave A. Influence of Suggestion on Imagination. Am. Jr. 

Psychol., Vol. 24, pp. 540-549. 
Fisher, S. Carolyn. Arithmetic and Reasoning in Children. Ped. Sem., 

1912, Vol. 19, pp. 48-77. 
Folsom, Joseph K. The Scientific Play World of a Child. Ped. Sem., 191 5, 

Vol. 22, pp. 161-182. 



DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECT 309 

Griffin, Joseph T. Practical Illustrations of the Law of Apperception. 

Ped. Sem., 191 2, Vol. 19, pp. 403-415. 
Hancock, John A. The Place of Reasoning in Teaching. Ped. Sem., 

191 1, Vol. 18, pp. 184-196. 
Libby, Walter. The Contents of Children's Minds. Ped. Sem., 1910, 

Vol. 17, pp. 242-272. 
McCrady, L. L. The Child and the Imaginative Life. Atlantic Mo., 

1907, Vol. 100, pp. 480-488. 
Peterson, Harvey A. The Generalizing Ability of Children. J. Educal. 

Psychol., 1914, Vol. 5, pp. 561-570. 
Terman, L. M. Genius and Stupidity. Ped. Sem., 1906, Vol. 13, pp. 

307-373. 
Triplett, Norman. Pedagogical Arrests and Peculiarities. Ped. Sem., 

1905, Vol. 12, pp. 141-157. 
Woods, Elizabeth L. Recent Experiments in Committing to Memory. 

Ped. Sem., 1912, Vol. 19, pp. 250-279. 
Yamada, Sasfichi. A Study of Questioning. Ped. Sem., 1913, Vol. 

20, pp. 129-186. 



CHAPTER XVII 

INDIVIDUALITY 

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TERM 

Whatever has a separate existence so that it cannot be 
divided or fused with something else, without losing its essential 
unity, has individuality. A pebble, therefore, has some indi- 
viduahty, while a drop of water has none. Again, in order to 
have individuality, an object must not only have a unitary and 
separate existence, but it must differ from every other unit. 
Coins, as they roll from the mint, have no individuality, for each 
is exactly like the other. The products of machines generally 
lack individuality, while hand-made goods and the products 
of organic nature all possess some individuality. No two leaves 
are ever found exactly alike. 

Difference from other similar units is one essential element 
in individuaHty. The difference may be slight or great, and in 
one or many characteristics. The more characteristics a thing 
possesses, the greater are the chances for difference or individ- 
uaHty. A mere point can differ from another point in posi- 
tion only, while a line may differ from other Hnes in position, 
direction, and length, and a rectangle from other rectangles in 
position, length, breadth, and proportion of length to breadth. 
A material object of rectangular form may also differ from other 
rectangular objects, in composition, weight, thickness, color, 
and smoothness. Organic objects may differ in all these ways 
and also in origin, manner of growth, length of life, etc. It 
follows, therefore, that the most complex things may be most 

310 



INDIVIDUALITY 311 

unlike ; hence man, the most complex of animals, has the greatest 
individuality of all. This is true of the body, and with still 
more truth may we say, ^' every human soul is unique.'' 

Although a description of the peculiarities of an individual, 
as compared with the corresponding qualities in others of his 
kind, is the easiest way of showing his individuality, it is in a way 
superficial. Individuality depends more upon harmony and 
unity of qualities, or their lack, than it does upon the degree in 
which each quality is possessed, as compared with the average 
person. The permanency of the particular organization of quali- 
ties is also another measure of individuality. In the latter 
respect individuality increases with age. 

BIOLOGICAL VALUE OF INDIVIDUALITY 

Biologically, the significance of individuality is as great as 
that of heredity. If every individual of a new generation were 
exactly like its parents, evolution would be impossible. An 
almost infinite variety of individuals must be produced in order 
that the fundamental principle of evolution, i.e. natural selection, 
may act effectively. Probably not one acorn in a thousand 
sprouts and takes root, and not more than one in a hundred of 
those that do, ever reach the proportions of a full-sized oak. 
The loss of buds and branches in each individual oak is almost 
equally great. In the animal world the loss is scarcely less, 
especially in the lower forms of animal life. If all grasshoppers' 
eggs matured, the globe would be buried with them in a few 
years. Which of these vast multitudes of young creatures of 
each species shall survive, seems entirely a matter of chance, 
or, in other words, of temporary and local conditions ; but such 
is not the case. No two organisms, from the tiniest leaf or seed, 
and the smallest bug, to the most complex of all beings, — man, 
— are exactly alike. Despite their similarity every member of 
each species has some individuality. Those having character- 



312 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

istics in the slightest degree more suitable to the constant con- 
ditions of life, are most likely to be preserved to produce others 
with some of the same characteristics. 

The enormous loss of life in each new generation is therefore 
not wholly useless, for those animals that survive have the 
characteristics which fit them to live successfully in the environ- 
ment into which they were born, while those that perished were 
in the main less favorably endowed. The continued existence 
of the species, so long as conditions remain the same, is thus 
assured. If conditions change, some individuals are likely to 
survive and produce descendants, whereas, if all were alike, all 
would perish. The selection, for survival, of those best suited 
to the new conditions, results in further evolution of the species 
and its more complete adaptation to the new life conditions. 

To the human race, individuality is even more important, 
for not only does it favor physical evolution, but also social 
progress. If there were no persons differing from the common 
mass of mankind, to serve as leaders and models for imitation, 
changes in customs and modes of thinking would be impossible. 
Progress would come to an eternal standstill. 

COMMONALITY AND INDIVIDUALITY 

Every person, as Shylock eloquently shows, has the essential 
characteristics of a common humanity as well as individual 
peculiarities. Physically, all have body, Hmbs, head, and in- 
ternal organs; but the absolute and relative size of each are 
never the same in two individuals. 

In height, men vary from three feet to eight feet, and in weight, 
from fifty to five hundred pounds. The average child at birth 
weighs about seven pounds, but an individual child may weigh 
anywhere from two to twenty pounds. Although about seventy 
per cent of the children in a first grade may be comfortable 
in the average seat for that grade, some individuals will require 



INDIVIDUALITY 313 

much smaller seats, and others, seats as large as are usually 
required in a sixth-grade room. The average pulse beat of men 
is seventy, but it may be forty or over a hundred. Differences 
equally great are found in every organ and process, and in the 
relation of parts and processes to each other, e.g. a man six feet 
high may have a shorter body than one only five and a half feet 
in height. Indeed, it is difference in proportion of parts rather 
than in absolute size that enables us to distinguish one individual 
from another. 

Even the very elements of which bone and muscle are com- 
posed differ in different persons; hence the combination of 
these elements into organs of different sizes must give rise to 
still greater differences in physiological processes, temperaments, 
movements, sensations, thoughts, emotions, and actions. 

Shoe dealers, doctors, teachers, and preachers would find their 
tasks much simplified (though rather dull and mechanical) if 
there were complete uniformity. Society would be quite demo- 
cratic. There would be no idiots and no geniuses, no criminals 
and no philanthropists, no radicals and no conservatives. Meth- 
ods of work and modes of worship would soon alike be mechan- 
ically regulated and continued without change. 

On the other hand, in a country where there is great individu- 
ality and no uniformity, governments exist only by force. Com- 
mon processes, standards and laws are impossible ; there is no 
peace except that of tyranny and subjection, and no permanency 
beyond the life of the dominant individual. A certain amount 
of uniformity is therefore necessary to the stabihty and peace 
of the social organism, while individuality is equally necessary 
if it is to be progressive. 

Looking at the matter simply from the standpoint of individ- 
ual happiness, the person who is like his fellows in nearly all. 
respects is in harmony with his social environment, and so far 
as that is concerned, is at least negatively happy. The person 



314 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

who differs greatly from his fellows in knowledge, temperament, 
habits, and ideals is shut off from any real companionship, be- 
cause there are none of his kind with whom to associate. He 
is irritated by their monotonous lives, and they, by his eccen- 
tricities; hence the man of genius is often miserable. The 
person who differs from his fellows by inferiority is even more 
unfortunate if he realizes it. Perhaps there is least comfort 
for the man who is neither superior nor inferior, but simply dif- 
ferent. To be happy, a man must have much in common with 
his fellows ; and to be useful, he must have also something 
which they have not. It follows, therefore, that not only does 
the stabiHty and improvement of the social organism depend 
upon the presence of both common characteristics and individual 
pecuKarities, but so also does the welfare and happiness of the 
individuals composing the social organism. 

FACTORS PRODUCING COMMONALITY AND INDIVIDUALITY 

Heredity favors uniformity in proportion to the oldness and 
pureness of the ancestral line, while mixed parentage results 
in greater differences in the offspring. In no case, however, 
are all the children of the same parents exactly alike, even at 
birth. How far these differences are due to germ heredity, and 
how far to prenatal influences, we do not know; but the fact 
remains that every person has in some degree native or con- 
genital individuality. 

Experience, training, and teaching, in so far as they are 
uniform, favor commonality. Where the climate, industries, 
customs, laws, religion, and sources of knowledge as the schools 
and the press, are the same, the people will inevitably be more 
nearly of a single type. 

Though there are natural and social influences tending to 
produce commonality, yet a greater or less degree of individuality 
is found in every home, community, and nation because (i) 



INDIVIDUALITY 315 

congenital differences cause the individuals to react in various 
ways to the common external influences ; (2) differences in treat- 
ment result from these congenital peculiarities {e.g. sl bright 
child is asked to do things a dull one is not, and a quarrelsome 
child is treated differently from an even-tempered one by his 
companions), and (3) chance influences (such as being the 
youngest or oldest in the family, and special accidents or events 
that affect one child and not another, or that occur at a different 
stage of development) give a different form to each character. 
Slight differences may produce, ultimately, enormous individual 
variations. The truth: ''To him that hath shall be given," is 
of wide application. A uniform environment makes for com- 
monahty, but on account of individual differences the various 
influences are in some cases almost nil in their effects and very 
impressive in others ; hence under the same treatment children 
may increase and confirm marked individual peculiarities. 

TIME OF GREATEST INDIVIDUALITY 

It is hard to say at what age individuality is greatest. In 
adults there is much more of the harmony and unity of char- 
acteristics that make an individual a person, instead of a mass 
of partly related phenomena, than in the case of an infant. The 
individuality is also more fixed, so that it is less modifiable by 
surroundings. In children, individuality is less because the child^s 
nature is simpler and many of his peculiarities are transient. 
On the other hand, the child's individuality is greater in some 
ways because he has not been subjected to the many years of 
social training and education that have tended to make adults 
all alike. The new instincts which develop as the years pass, 
increase the possibility of individual differences in a way that 
partially balances the influences tending to uniformity. 

Measurements and tests show greater individual differences 
for young children, and for those just entering their teens, than 



3i6 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

for other ages. This is largely accounted for by the fact that 
rapid changes are occurring at these ages, and by the fact that 
such changes begin earlier in some children than in others. 
About three times as many children are of the mean weight at 
eight years of age as at fifteen ; while the difference in weight 
between the largest and the smallest boy at fifteen is about 
twice as great as between the largest and smallest boy at eight. 
The changes being slow for the years just before and after eight, 
a difference of a year or two in the time of entering upon a new 
stage of development makes only slight individual difference 
in children of that age, while at about fifteen the changes are so 
great that the difference between one who is a year late and one 
who is a year early in his development is very marked. 

Physiological studies show also that adolescents differ greatly 
from each other in thought, feeling, and action; and history 
testifies that many inventions and innovations have been made 
by adolescents. We therefore conclude that, everything con- 
sidered, individuality in the sense of variations from the average 
is greatest during the adolescent period. Some persons who 
resist common influences, and continue to develop their own 
peculiarities, show the greatest individuality in maturity or 
old age ; but the majority become more and more like their 
fellows in general society, and like their co-workers in their 
occupation, but more fixed in the phases of individuality that 
they retain. 

GENERAL AND PARTICULAR TRUTHS REGARDING CHILDREN 

The anatomist, physiologist, psychologist, and moralist make 
many generalizations as to what is true of the average man ; but 
no individual will be found who is in all particulars an average 
man. The generalizations are not false or useless, but eminently 
true and valuable, since they give a mean or standard to which 
the great majority of men approximately conform. Wh^re ther^ 



INDIVIDUALITY 317 

IS one man between seven and eight feet high, there are hundreds 
of thousands between five and six feet. It is thus practical to 
construct doors, chairs, and beds to suit the majority of men. 
The variations in proportion of parts are greater, yet the majority 
of men can be fairly well fitted with ready-made clothing. A 
perfect fit, however, requires individual measurement, and in 
a few cases such measurement is necessary in order for the clothes 
to be worn at all. 

Standards regarding physical processes are of great value in 
medicine as indices of physical health ; yet physicians find it 
necessary to determine the normal standards of individuals in 
order to properly diagnose and prescribe successfully. 

Generalizations regarding the mental power and the moral 
worth of the average man are of immense value in practical and 
social Hfe, yet individuahty must be recognized in explaining 
or appealing to men, to a greater extent than in manufacturing 
furniture and clothing, or in prescribing food, medicine, and ex- 
ercise. 

Scientific students of children are trying to make generaliza- 
tions in the realms of anatomy, physiology, psychology, and morals 
as to the characteristics most prominent at different ages. Such 
generalizations, when carefully made, are valuable as standards 
of comparison. They are not, however, models to which indi- 
viduals should be made to conform, any more than men should 
be made over to fit coats, chairs, or the size of pills. On the 
contrary, the results of child-study investigations have always 
emphasized the greatness of individual difference in children 
and the need of recognizing it. For example, though carefully 
prepared tables show that the average boy of eight is forty- 
seven inches high, yet individuals of that age are found fifty- 
five inches in height, which is equal to that of the average 
twelve-year-old ; and others, only thirty-five inches, or less 
than the height of the average three-year-old. Tests show 



31 8 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

that the average boy of the sixth grade can work so many ex- 
amples of a certain kind in two minutes. This is a valuable 
standard for comparing the arithmetical attainments of children, 
but no reason whatever for trying to bring all children to that 
standard. 

After the sixth year, the fifteenth year is for the average boy 
the year of most rapid growth; but individual boys begin to 
grow more rapidly as early as the twelfth year, and others as 
late as the nineteenth. Again, the average boy grows about 
three inches in his fifteenth year; but individuals have been 
known to grow thirteen inches in that year. Tests of rate of 
movement, strength, endurance, sensitiveness, discrimination, 
and memory show increase during school age of from two to five 
fold ; yet nearly as great differences are found between the poor- 
est and the best individuals of each age. In nearly all tests of 
children of different school grades, even where the change with 
grade is marked and fairly regular, one usually finds nearly as 
wide a divergence between children in the same grade as between 
the averages for the lowest and the highest grades. 

Children usually learn to walk when a Httle over a year old, 
but some begin as early as seven months, and others not until 
nearly two years of age. At two years, most children use three 
or four hundred words ; but some do not use a dozen, and others, 
more than a thousand. Most children show marked mental 
changes soon after entering the teens ; but some show none, and 
others go through such changes long before or long after that 
time. Children who do well in their school work (according 
to Porter and Hastings) average larger than those who do poorly ; 
but a dozen exceptions to this generaHzation could probably 
be found in almost every school. Fewer exceptions are found 
if the relation of breathing capacity to weight is considered. 
The time element makes all generalizations in child study more 
difficult than in mere anatomy, physiology, psychology, and ethics, 



INDIVIDUALITY 319 

because the age at which changes take place varies greatly in 
different children ; hence those who may, when mature, be much 
alike, are often quite different at certain periods of life, because 
one has entered upon a new stage of development much earlier 
than the other. 

NECESSITY OF RECOGNIZING INDIVIDUALITY IN CHILDREN 

Whether the teacher wishes to promote individuality or uni- 
formity, she must (if she is to be in the highest degree successful) 
recognize individuality. Children are different to begin with ; 
hence they react differently to the same treatment. In order 
to get them to react in the same way, so as to have uniform 
development, they must be appealed to differently. If a uni- 
form standard is to be approached, certain characteristics must 
be fostered in some and suppressed in others. If the same 
knowledge and skill are to be obtained, different individuals 
must be allowed different periods of time for doing a given 
amount of work, because experiments show that the number 
of units of work that can be accomplished by some members of 
a class in a given time is from two to four times as great as can 
be accomplished by other students of the same class, and this 
even in a senior class of a high school supposed to be well graded. 
If all are to form habits of effort and industry, different require- 
ments must therefore be made of different children; otherwise 
some will be forming habits of idleness, while others are over- 
doing or forming habits of "skimming." Difference in knowl- 
edge, as well as in natural powers and tendencies, must be recog- 
nized, or one will be confused where another is enlightened. 

It is clear from the preceding that if one wishes uniform re- 
sults from educational processes, he must recognize individuality. 
Much more, then, if one aims to develop individuality, must 
he recognize it at every step in the process. If, as in the highest 
ideals of education, it is desired to make each individual like his 



320 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

fellows in all ways necessary to association with them, and dif- 
ferent from them in all ways which his natural tendencies and 
position in life demand shall be different, there is double reason 
for recognizing individuality. 

When we say individuality must be recognized, we mean the 
same, only with greater emphasis, as when we say each person 
must be measured in order that his clothing may be made to fit. 
We know, however, that the people of a city can be better fitted 
from a stock of ready-made clothing, which has been cut accord- 
ing to general principles governing the size and proportion of 
parts of the majority of men and boys, than they can be by a 
poor tailor who measures and tries to fit each one individually. 
He is only an artisan, and notwithstanding his opportunity for 
individual measurement his results are inferior to those of other 
artisans who make no measurements of individuals, but work 
according to general principles under the direction of experts. 
The best results can only be obtained by the expert tailor who 
is able to measure the individual accurately, apply general prin- 
ciples correctly, and exercise his judgment in making each gar- 
ment a work of art. In a similar way, we may say that children 
may be taught more successfully in the mass, according to gen- 
eral principles under the supervision of an expert, than they can 
be taught individually by a poor teacher who has little knowledge 
of general principles of education, less ability in reading in- 
dividual children, and no skill in dealing with them. The best 
results can be reached, however, only when the teacher is an 
artist and able to fit the work to individual needs, so that every 
child may be molded according to the same general type as other 
children, and developed so as to bring out the highest and best 
of his individual characteristics. 



INDIVIDUALITY 321 

HOW COMMONALITY AND INDIVIDUALITY MAY BE DEVELOPED 

To develop the common characteristics necessary to the main- 
tenance of proper social relations, there must be some uniformity 
as to what is done and learned. All must at least learn a common 
language, and some of the fundamental customs of the nation. 
Many other things in our present course of study are more or 
less necessary and desirable, but none are so essential as means 
of communication and common traditions. A certain amount 
of knowledge of arithmetic, geography, etc., is also desirable 
as a common basis of understanding. 

To preserve both commonality and individuality, the require- 
ments in a few subjects of a course of study should be set at 
rather a low minimum, with no maximum and no time Hmit. 
In other words, most children may be expected to reach approxi- 
mately certain minimum standards of knowledge and skill in 
fundamentals, but not necessarily in exactly the same time. To 
promote individuality, a child must be allowed and encouraged 
to go beyond the minimum in any line, and given opportunity 
for becoming interested and for working in other lines. In other 
words, instead of being held to ineffective attempts to make 
up deficiencies, he should be helped in advancing in the lines 
for which he has the greatest capacity. 

TYPES OF INDIVIDUALITY 

Since every one comes in contact with thousands of individuals 
of varying similarity and difference, it would be very convenient 
if one could classify them into a few types, and then deal with 
the individuals according to the types to which they belong. 
The classification most commonly used has been that of tem- 
perament, but unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) few in- 
dividuals exhibit exactly the characteristics ascribed to any one 
of the several temperaments. Some of the characteristics of 



322 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

several temperaments are shown by one individual, and none 
of them in the same degree by any two. In many cases the 
best method of treatment may be more readily and accurately 
determined by studying the individual than by classifying him 
as belonging to a certain type. 

The varieties of individuality are so great that psychology 
and child study can never tell teachers what they would most 
like to know — just how to deal with individual pupils. Science 
in its very nature is general ; its goal is the discovery and state- 
ment of general rather than individual truths. Scientific knowl- 
edge is not, however, useless to the teacher ; the more she knows 
of how most human beings act and develop, and of the character- 
istics niost common at each stage of development, the more 
quickly and correctly will she be able to determine what is the 
best treatment for an individual child. Experience in dealing 
with other children more or less similar, will also be helpful in 
determining what to do with the child in question. The reading 
of how other children have been dealt with and the study of 
biographies and of novels that are true to life, may in part take 
the place of actual experience with children. From such ex- 
perience and study one may form in his own mind a more prac- 
tical classification of children than he can by trying to under- 
stand the types described by another. 

Children are usually best described and managed according 
to prominent characteristics, rather than according to groups 
of qualities indicated by type names. It is much more important 
to the teacher to know whether a boy is slow or quick in his 
mental operations, than it is to know whether he has all the 
characteristics of the phlegmatic or of the nervous temperament. 
The accuracy and ease with which a pupil works, depend, more 
than anything else, upon the rate at which he is required to 
perform each operation. Often a pupil can work best and most 
easily at twice the rate that is best suited to his classmate. On 



INDIVIDUALITY 



323 



the other hand, the slow pupil may be able to maintain a steady, 
prolonged activity under direction, for a length of time utterly 
impossible to the pupil with the more agile mind. Experiments 
by Davis indicate that persons who are quick in their reactions 
gain more in muscular power by hght than by heavy practice, 
while those who are slow gain most by heavy practice. Ex- 
periments on fatigue also indicate that quickly reacting indi- 
viduals show more extreme and sudden variations in fatigue 
than those who are slow. Observation also indicates that slow 
individuals often improve under stimulus and direction, while 
the quicker pupil may be so excited and disturbed by stimulation 
and close supervision that he makes many mistakes and wastes 
much energy. 

Of course there are large numbers of children who are neither 
especially quick nor slow, and who are therefore most helped 
by an intermediate mode of treatment. The final test of the 
suitability of any method of treatment for a child is the effect 
which it is observed to have upon him ; hence no study of gen- 
eralizations and types of individuality can ever render unneces- 
sary the observation of individuals. 

Exercises for Students 

1 . State some examples of individuality that you have observed in plants 
or animals. 

2. If plants of the same variety were all alike, would it be possible to 
improve the variety? Why? 

3. Give not less than six examples of extreme variation of some kind in 
people. Are any of these persons treated differently because of their 
peculiarity ? 

4. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of uniformity and individ- 
uality in abUity, beliefs, and customs in a community, so far as they may 
be produced by education and law. 

5. Give illustrations of persons who were miserable because of their 
difference from other persons, of those who were useless for lack of it, and 



324 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

of those interesting or influential because of it. Do leaders have much, 
little, or a medium individuality ? 

6. Give illustrations of individuality due to heredity, to acceleration or 
retardation in development, to surroundings, to chance circumstances, to 
congenital peculiarity. Is it of any value to the teacher to know the causes 
of individuality ? Why ? 

Have the people of the United States more or less individuality than those 
of other nations? Why? Mention the various factors tending to make 
them have more or less individuality than the people of England. 

7. As regards permanency or degree of individuality, what would be 
true of the following: a radical? a conservative? a man set in his way? a 
genius ? an imbecile ? a saint ? a criminal ? an athlete ? an invalid ? a giant ? 
a dwarf? 

8. Do the following promote individuality or commonality: churches? 
lodges? public lectures? theaters? factories? shops of the Roycroft type? 
Name other things which produce uniformity or individuality. 

9. In what respects is the individuality of a successful reformer like 
that of a crank or a martyr, and in what respects different ? 

10. At what age did you feel yourself most different from other people? 
If one goes into new social surroundings, is he likely to feel his individuality 
more or less? Why? 

11. Give illustrations showing the value of knowledge of certain general 
truths regarding the characteristics of children of each age and grade, and 
also of the value of knowledge of individual peculiarities. Which do you 
think is of more advantage to a teacher, to know many general truths re- 
garding children, or to be able to readily note and understand individual 
peculiarities? 

12. If a class of children are to be prepared for the same examination, 
why should individuality be recognized? Illustrate. 

13. In preparing a lesson, should a teacher think more of the common 
characteristics of a class or of their individual peculiarities? During the 
lesson which should she think more of ? How can she best meet both class 
and individual needs? 

14. What is the general effect upon individuality of allowing children to 
choose for themselves a good deal? Illustrate. 

15. Describe some of the ways in which you have known individuality 
to be recognized and promoted in school. 



INDIVIDUALITY 



325 



Suggestions for Reading 

On the nature and importance of individuality, see Bailey, Psych. Rev., 
Vol. VI, pp. 649-651 ; N. W. Mo., Vol. VIII, pp. 250-256, 370-375; 
Stanley, Ed. Rev., Vol. XVIII, pp. 80-84 ; Howerth, Jr. Fed., Vol. XIV, 
pp. 311-324; Doan, Jr. Fed., Vol. XIV, pp. 13-33 ; Ribot, Psychology 
of the Emotions, pp. 380-404. 

On tests and types of individuality, Wissler, Monograph Suppl. to Psych. 
Rev., No. 16, pp. 1-62 ; Jr. Ped., Vol. XIV, pp. 203-213 ; Sharp, Am. 
Jr. Psych., Vol. X, pp. 328-391; Kirkpatrick, Psych. Rev., Vol. VII, 
pp. 274-280; Kelley, Psych. Rev., Vol. X, pp. 345-372; Bagley, Am. 
Jr. Psych., Vol. XII, pp. 193-205 ; Bohannon, Ped. Sem., Vol. IV, pp. 
3-60, Vol. V, pp. 475-496; F. Burk, N. W. Mo., Vol. VIII, pp. 481- 
484 ; Baldwin, Ch. S. Mo., Vol. I, pp. 1 21-124 ; Beebe, Ch. S. Mo., Vol. 
Ill, pp. 14-25; Burnham, Ped. Sem., Vol. II, pp. 204-225; Davis, 
Yale Studies, Vol. VIII, pp. 64-108 ; Ladd, Physiol. Psych., chap, xviii. 

For studies of individuals, Stableton, Diary of a Western Schoolmaster, or a 
series of articles in N. W. Mo., Vol. VIII ; Carmin, Ped. Sem., Vol. IX, 
pp. 106-117; Galton, "History of Twins," in Human Faculty, or as 
reprinted in Teachers College Record, May, 1901, or a number of sketches 
of individual children in Ch. S. Mo., together with such works as 
Smith's Evolution of Dodd. 

On individual teaching, see Search, An Ideal School, chap, viii; N. E. A.j 
1895, pp. 398-406; Ed. Rev., Vol. VII, pp. 154-170; Kennedy, Jr. 
Fed., Vol. XIV, pp. 130-139; N. E. A., 1901, pp. 295-305; Green- 
wood, Principles of Education Practically Applied, pp. 173-192. 





Later References 






Books 




Bolton 


Holmes, A. 


Smith 


Eastman 


Holmes, W. H. 


Stableton 


Fisher 


Jastrow (2) 


Swift 


Galton 


Kirkpatrick (3) 


Thorndike (5 & 7) 


Groszmann 


Morgan, B. 




Healy 


Partridge 





Articles 

Buttenwieser, Eben C. The Obstinate Child, Ped. Sem., 191 1, Vol. 18, 
pp. 315-328, 



326 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

Chambers, W. G. Individual Differences in Grammar Grade Children. J. 

Educal. Psych., 1910, Vol. i, pp. 61-75. 
Gillingham, Anna. One Child's Struggle in the Preparation for Life. 

Ped. Sem., 1913, Vol. 20, pp. 343-359- 
Goodhart, S. P. The Exceptional Child. Addr. and Proc. N. E. A., 

1910, pp. 886-892. 
MacLear, Martha. The Fact of Personality in the Development of a 

Typical Child. Ped. Sem., 1913, Vol. 20, pp. 93-97- 
MacDougall, R. The Social Basis of Individuality. Am. Jr. Sociology, 

1 91 2, Vol. 18, pp. 1-20. Pyle, W. H. A Psychological Study of 

Bright and Dull Pupils. J. Educal. Psychol., 191 5, Vol. 6, pp. 

151-156. 
Stern, W. The Supernormal Child. J. Educal. Psychol., 191 1, Vol. 2, 
pp. 143-148, 181-190. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

CHILD STUDY APPLIED IN SCHOOLS 

USE OF TRUTHS KNOWN AND ACQUIRABLE 

All the teacher's knowledge of physiology and psychology 
and of the characteristics usually prominent at different ages 
of childhood may be of use in knowing what to assume as true, 
what observations to make, and how to judge the significance 
of the facts discovered in studying children. In a similar way 
the less systematic knowledge of human nature and of children 
gained by association with them at different ages will naturally 
be used in getting acquainted with the special characteristics of 
a school as a whole and of the individual children composing it. 

A teacher may in an indirect way make a valuable study of 
a school before she sees it. Knowing the grade she is to teach, 
she can infer the age of the majority of the children. From her 
knowledge of the principles of child study, she will know what 
characteristics are likely to be prominent at that age. This 
will give her some idea of the school, wherever it is located. 

If the children are nearly all of one or two nationalities, this 
will tell her something about them. Physical and social heredity 
will inevitably endow them with the principal characteristics 
of the nation to which they belong. Any knowledge, therefore, 
the teacher may have or acquire of these nationalities will be 
helpful to her in understanding the children. 

A knowledge of the community, its occupations, social organi- 
zations, and amusements will also be helpful. The imitative 
instinct makes it absolutely certain that the children will absorb 

327 



328 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

many phases of the social Hfe by which they are surrounded. 
It is almost equally sure that they will know something of the 
objects of nature and art about them, and little of those of other 
places unless they have traveled, or have read with unusual 
intelligence. The fundamental apperceptive knowledge possessed 
by the children may therefore be determined by studying their 
natural as well as their social surroundings. 

To know something of the school knowledge and training pos- 
sessed by the pupils, the course of study and methods of teaching 
in the city or district may be studied. With some allowances 
for forgetting, pretty shrewd guesses as to what the children 
will know, can then be made. 

The schoolroom, with all its possibilities for heating, lighting, 
ventilating, seating, illustrating, and decorating, should be 
studied as an important factor in determining what may be done 
with the school that is to inhabit it. Books and apparatus 
should also be considered in this connection. 

OBSERVATION AND INCIDENTAL STUDY 

When the children appear and begin their work, the teacher 
may study them in a direct way by observations, and thus sup- 
plement and correct with specific facts her previous conclusions. 
The majority of the children may prove to be either young or 
old for their grade, and their development may be greater or 
less than that usual for their ages, though the teacher's knowl- 
edge of their social surroundings should have prepared her for 
such variations as the latter. Their knowledge of natural sur- 
roundings and of school studies, when tested by reviews and ques- 
tions, may also prove greater or less than was anticipated. 

In regulating the school the teacher assumes that certain 
forms of control are necessary and that certain motives and in- 
fluences may best be used in preserving order and in securing 
good work, but she should observe closely how the children re- 



CHILD STUDY APPLIED IN SCHOOLS 329 

spond as a group and as individuals to directions, example, sug- 
gestions, reproofs, rewards, public sentiment, personal approval 
or group disapproval and individual group competition, curios- 
ity, practical needs, play opportunities, etc., and modify her 
actions accordingly, preserving her ideals, but finding the most 
effective means of realizing them. 

She should not confine her study of children to the school- 
room or even to the playground, but should seek to know as much 
as possible of the character of their activities outside of school. 
These facts may often be obtained indirectly through conver- 
sation with the children and through papers written by them. 

Language exercises calling for information along these lines 
may be made very interesting to the children and valuable to 
the teacher who wishes her teaching to correct and supplement 
the incidental education given by the community. Such topics 
as the following, assigned at not too frequent intervals, will give 
the teacher a good idea of the activities and influences affecting 
the children when not in school. "What I like best to read, 
and why," ''What I did last Saturday" (written on Monday), 
''What I did during vacation" (written just after vacation), 
"What I am going to do this vacation" (just before vacation), 
"What I do on school days outside of school hours," "The 
games that I like to play best, and why," "The best time I ever 
had," "What I am going to do when grown, and why," "Five 
things that are bad and wrong, and why," "Five things that 
are good and right, and why," "Some good acts and some bad 
acts that I have seen this week," "My experience in getting, 
keeping, and spending money," "What I would do with it if I 
received fifty cents a day for a month," "Which I would rather 
have, five dollars to-day, fifty dollars a year from to-day, or five 
hundred dollars in ten years, and why," "The kind of a playmate 
or chum I like best," "Pets that I have had and that I wish to 
have." 



330 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

When a teacher first begins her work in a school, the children 
are slow in understanding her questions and directions, and it 
is generally recognized that it takes time for teacher and pupils 
to get used to each other. This ''getting used to each other" 
means not merely greater famiHarity, but the formation of 
habits by the pupils, in accordance with the teacher's habits 
of doing things and of expecting them to be done. Many of 
these are very obvious, such as signals for leaving the room, 
asking questions, position assumed in reading, writing, and put- 
ting away or getting books and material, answering questions, 
etc., and it probably is well for the teacher to consciously direct 
the formation of such of these formal school habits as she thinks 
necessary, in order that they may be quickly established and 
require little subsequent attention. Direction in forming these 
habits should consist not so much in description of the thing to 
be done as of practice in doing it at the proper time. 

The pupils' modes of observing and thinking will be affected 
by the way in which the teacher questions, analyzes, and outHnes, 
their feelings and sentiments influenced by those she holds and 
expresses, consciously and unconsciously, and their attentive- 
ness, carefulness, and persistency determined to some extent by 
her example and her requirements. Every teacher should note 
the habits of thinking, feeling, and working, common to the 
school, that have been formed by the social environment and by 
previous school experiences and conditions, and should consciously 
strive to correct the undesirable ones and develop the good ones. 

In attempting to break habits already formed, the teacher 
should remember that a habit is a tendency to do a certain 
thing under certain conditions, and hence that a change in the 
conditions giving rise to a habit will often change the habit. 
It is also much easier to learn to do something else under the 
conditions calling forth a habit than to refrain from doing any- 
thing, or, in other words, it is easier to change a habit than to 



CHILD STUDY APPLIED IN SCHOOLS 331 

break it. It is therefore often wisest to say nothing about un- 
desirable habits, but to change the conditions under which they 
appear, or to set the children to doing something which will 
erelong take the place of the undesirable habit. For example, 
children who are led to become interested in hearing or doing 
something do not need to be told not to gaze around the room or 
out of doors ; and those who are learning to observe or care for 
animals will not long continue to practice cruelty toward them. 

A teacher should be careful that the children do not get into 
the habit of holding her, instead of themselves,' responsible for 
order. Very often they wait for a look or a word which has 
become a customary signal for them as individuals to do certain 
things. They are Hke a httle three-year-old girl, who, after 
being reminded many times to stop before drinking all of her 
milk, said, when not so reminded, ''Mamma, why don't you tell 
me to stop?" 

In directing the formation of habits in which improvement 
with practice is desired, as in learning to write and draw, the 
teacher should be satisfied with the work as long as it shows 
improvement, but should be very careful when improvement 
stops, because one of two undesirable results is Hkely to appear : 
either the habit with its imperfect execution becomes fixed by 
repetition, so that after a time it is almost impossible to change 
it ; or else when the volitional effort to do good work decreases, 
the execution begins to revert back to a less developed stage at 
which it may then become fixed. It should also be remembered 
that doing a thing well under one set of conditions does not 
necessarily mean that it will be done equally well under others ; 
hence a pupil who writes well when writing in a copy book, may 
write very poorly when trying to express his ideas in a language 
lesson. The teacher should, therefore, see that habits are per- 
fected under the conditions likely to exist when they are to be 
used. 



332 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

After a teacher becomes quite familiar with her school, she 
still needs to study it to know what to do in special circumstances. 
She must be quick to discover signs of nervousness, restlessness, 
fatigue, or loss of interest ; thorough in searching for the causes, 
whether they be in the physical conditions of the room or in 
something that has been done either in or out of school; and 
fertile in expedients for removing or counteracting undesirable 
influences. 

If the cause of the difficulty should be in herself, she should 
be no less persistent in removing it. It is more important to 
the school that the teacher shall keep herself in good health and 
free from fatigue, nervousness, and worry than it is that she shall 
correct papers or even teach in the best possible manner. 

If she is careless and unsystematic in her work, no amount 
of talking about neatness and order will make the children 
careful and orderly. If she calls, in a loud and irritated manner, 
for them to be quiet, she is really giving them a suggestion to 
become more noisy. If she is afraid the children will not obey 
her, the idea of disobeying is at once suggested to them by her 
voice and manner. Since natural signs have greater suggestive 
force for children than words, it is not strange that they are more 
influenced by the actions, manner, and tone of voice of the teacher 
than by what she says. 

The effects upon the school of suggestion and imitation among 
the pupils themselves are also frequently very marked. The 
teacher should, therefore, study closely the social relations of 
her pupils, observing who seem to be leaders in the public senti- 
ment of the school, and who are merely imitators and followers. 
Then she should make a special effort to understand the leaders 
so as to influence them, and in that way to direct the sentiment 
and actions of the school. She should arrange the seating of 
pupils also, so that there will be as Httle temptation as possible 
to visiting or other disturbance. All cases of chumming and 



CHILD STUDY APPLIED IN SCHOOLS 333 

rivalry in individuals or of groups should be noted. In many 
schools it will be found that there are one or more societies 
formed by the children themselves, which not infrequently have 
special badges or passwords, and sometimes an extensive secret 
language. The teacher will find it interesting and profitable 
to become famihar with all these social relations of the little 
society of which she is the leader, and to note how the children 
are being influenced by them. She should seek to use, rather 
than to suppress, such social activities. Individual rivalries 
may not be ignored, but should not be encouraged ; while rivalry 
between groups may be profitably encouraged when it leads to 
better cooperation of the members of each group, and is good- 
natured. 

STUDY AND TREATMENT OF INDIVIDUAL CHILDREN 

After the teacher has become so well acquainted with her 
school that she knows how to regulate it, and conduct the classes 
to the best advantage of the majority of the children, she should 
seek to know more of the exceptional and peculiar children whose 
needs are not being fully met, and to find ways of meeting their 
needs without interfering with the general school and class 
work. In doing this, she should never assent for one moment 
to the idea that all the children must be treated exactly alike. 
Everything she does should be for the good of each child, whether 
it be the assignment of a long or a short lesson, or the giving of 
a punishment or a reward. What will be the best training or the 
most effective corrective for one may not be for another ; hence 
it is her duty to treat each pupil in the way that will cause him 
to improve most and on that basis justify her conduct. 

In her study of the school as a whole, the teacher will have 
noticed children who show marked variations from the average 
in many ways. There are undoubtedly causes for each peculiar- 
ity, and the teacher should at once seek to discover them. She 



334 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

should inquire into the past history and present conditions and 
surroundings to discover how far the child's peculiarities may be 
accounted for by heredity, sickness, accidents, previous school 
training, special home conditions, life outside of school, or present 
defects. Where the peculiarities are undesirable, their causes 
should be removed or counteracted as far as possible. Where 
they are in the nature of special interests or powers, the teacher 
should favor their development so far as may be without inter- 
fering with the development of other phases of the child's nature. 

Much ingenuity is required to keep all the members of an 
average class interested and actively employed all of the time, 
because of difference in rate and accuracy of working; yet, if 
this is not done successfully, some children are confused, others 
waste their time, and disorder is almost sure to appear. 

When, in addition to what may be called, for want of a better 
term, "average pupils," the teacher has many who are peculiar, 
defective, abnormal, or exceptional in some way, her difficulties 
are greatly increased. In almost every school there are children 
who can get little or nothing from the regular class work. Teach- 
ers, with the large number of pupils they usually have, cannot 
possibly meet fully the needs of such children without sacrificing 
the rest of the school. 

It is therefore desirable that, in every city, ungraded rooms 
for individual instruction should be provided. About one 
room in every ten should be of this kind. Two types of ungraded 
schools are desirable : one for primary children, who are so de- 
fective or peculiar that they cannot get started to learning readily 
in an ordinary class ; and one for grammar-grade children who 
are exceptional, principally in their rate of working or knowledge 
of special subjects, and who, therefore, need special training in 
one or more lines in order to be fitted for the next grade. With 
such provision many peculiar and backward children soon show 
themselves capable of great improvement, and children who have 



CHILD STUDY APPLIED IN SCHOOLS 335 

in some way got behind in one or more subjects are enabled to 
pass from grade to grade without unnecessary loss of time. 
Where such schools are not provided, some children are sure to 
suffer, and some of the best teachers to worry, because of the 
impossibility of meeting both class and individual needs. 

Not only should the backward children have special provision 
made for individual care, but also the talented children who are 
sometimes learning to waste time in doing only the regular work 
of the class. Such pupils should be given opportunity for a 
fuller exercise of their general and special talents, but should 
not by the educative advancement be shut off from association 
with companions of their own degree of physical and emotional 
maturity. Social experiences with others of one's own kind 
should never be sacrificed for merely intellectual acquisitions. 

OBSERVATION OF FATIGUE AND NERVOUS STATES 

Tests that would be of value to the ordinary teacher in deter- 
mining the adaptability of her daily program to her children, 
and in discovering exceptional instances of fatigue in the school 
or in individual pupils, have been sought for several years. It 
may be safely said, however, that no method of discovering 
fatigue, that can be mechanically applied by a teacher, has been 
found. Such tests cannot take the place of intelligent common 
sense and good judgment on her part. She must not only be 
able to note the decrease in rate or accuracy of working, but 
must also learn to read the signs of oncoming fatigue, in the 
pupil's attitudes and movements. 

The signs that appear first are variation and wandering of 
attention or increase in effort to attend, or in movements of a 
fidgety or restless character. The first is an indication of mental 
fatigue, and the last, of fatigue of muscles that have been con- 
tracted during the period of attention. Sometimes the in- 
crease of movement, especially when the fatigue is considerable. 



336 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

is the result of increased irritability of the nerve centers, re- 
sulting in continual outflow of energy and many rather nervous 
responses to sudden auditory and other stimuli. 

Other more or less common and significant signs of fatigue 
and exhaustion that the teacher may observe or learn by inquiry 
are as follows: jaded expression of face, drooping attitude, 
paleness or redness of cheeks or tips of ears; dazed, weary, 
fixed, or lack-luster appearance of the eyes ; sudden movements, 
grimaces, frowning, compression of lips, twitching of the fingers, 
face, eyes, or eyeHds ; unsteadiness as shown in bad handwriting, 
mispronunciation and miscalling of words in talking and reading ; 
headache, cold feet, sleeplessness, dreaming, teeth grinding, or 
talking in sleep ; irritable, cross, or peevish disposition or moods ; 
poor hearing and imperfect discrimination of words, sometimes 
with extreme sensitiveness to disturbing sounds; blurring of 
vision, color blindness, and double images; temporary loss of 
memory of familiar or recently stated names or facts ; and fail- 
ure of mental grasp, as indicated by inability to follow a chain 
of reasoning and a tendency to forget what one is going to say. 

The test that is of greatest value to a teacher is one that shows 
the curve of fatigue in different children, because this throws 
much light on their individuality. One who fatigues very 
rapidly and recovers with equal suddenness, requires quite dif- 
ferent treatment from one who fatigues very slowly and gradually. 

Abnormal brain states, though themselves slight, show in ex- 
pression and behavior. Impulses are continually going from 
the brain to every muscle, organ, and gland, as well as from 
each part of the body to the brain. Imperfect activity of the 
brain may, therefore, be shown in paleness of the face, slow 
growth of the body, and imperfect development of parts, as well 
as in attitude, and expression of face and movements; while, 
conversely, a defect or disturbance in any part of the body may 
affect brain activity unfavorably. It is well, therefore, to notice 



CHILD STUDY APPLIED IN SCHOOLS 337 

not only the height and weight of a child for his age, and the 
color of the skin, but also the signs of imperfect development 
of organs, such as irregularities in shape of the head, narrow 
palate, broad bridge of the nose with small openings in nostrils, 
and imperfectly developed external ear; for, as Dr. Warner 
has shown, these are often associated with poor nutritive con- 
dition and mental dullness. 

Even more important are what he calls ^^ nerve signs, ''^ which 
indicate the amount of nervous energy being sent to the different 
muscles of the body, and hence the amount and regularity of the 
activity in different parts of the brain. Wrinkling of the fore- 
head is always indicative of some brain disturbance, as are also 
irregular and meaningless movements of any part of the body ; 
while a normal brain condition is shown by good attitude and 
well-balanced and coordinated movements, because this means 
that all parts of the brain are functioning vigorously, regularly, 
and harmoniously. Some of the more important "nerve signs" 
to be observed are : degree of erectness of body and head in 
standing or sitting; ability to hold hands straight out and 
evenly, palms down, without throwing the shoulders back and 
bending the spine forward; and to keep fingers and thumb 
straight without allowing them to droop or to bend back too 
much. 

The effects of poor nutrition are much the same as of general 
fatigue, as far as the power to do the work of the school is con- 
cerned. The common signs are paleness, fullness under the 
eyes, fewness or irregularity of spontaneous movements, and 
lack of steadiness of control, or power of continued application. 
Poor nutrition may be the result : of lack of sleep ; of lack of 
nutritious food ; of indigestion, due to irregular eating of in- 
digestible food ; or to a diseased condition otherwise produced. 
In all such cases the teacher may try to secure a change in home 
conditions and habits, which will make it possible for the child 



338 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

to do the work and conform to the discipline of the school, or, 
this failing, she may modify the requirements for the child so 
that he will not be overfatigued, and his condition made worse 
rather than better by attendance at school. 

Nervousness is a common result of fatigue, either general or 
local, and of poor nutrition. Even when the nervousness is 
hereditary, it is always increased by these conditions. Ner- 
vousness is a condition of increased irritability of nerve centers, 
and is shown by excessive movement in response to stimuli, 
especially sudden sounds, and in lack of steady and perfect con- 
trol of movement. Restlessness, or a strong tendency to move 
about a great deal, is sometimes mistaken for nervousness, though 
one is due to excess of nervous energy and the other to irritability 
of nerve centers. Either nervousness or restlessness may be 
produced by trying to keep still in a certain position, or by en- 
gaging in fine work that necessitates holding the larger muscles 
steady and moving accurately a group of smaller ones. 

The strong, restless child may be benefited greatly, so far as 
ability to behave and study is concerned, by an interval of 
vigorous exercise; while the nervous child would be exhausted 
and quite unfitted for the next work by such vigorous activity. 
He should have instead mild exercise, or a chance for quiet rest. 
It is especially important that the nervous child should not be 
scolded, found fault with, or in any way induced to work hard 
or worry about his work. A teacher who is loud of voice, un- 
attractive in dress, and sudden and variable in manner is especially 
irritating to a nervous child, and may be the chief occasion 
of the nervousness. Although a teacher should be quick to 
note signs of nervousness, she should avoid making the child 
conscious of his condition. The establishment of regular habits 
of work and of rest or amusement are of great value in decreasing 
nervousness. 

Chorea or St. Vitus^s dance is somewhat allied, in appearance 



CHILD STUDY APPLIED IN SCHOOLS 339 

and cause, to nervousness; yet it is a disease rather than a 
temporary condition. It is not, like nervousness, due to general 
irritability of the nerve centers as shown by increased response 
to stimuli, but to a more or less spontaneous and abnormal 
action of certain nerve centers and muscle groups, which gives 
rise to useless and meaningless movements of certain portions 
of the body, and produces partial or total inabiHty to perform 
comparatively simple acts, such as writing, buttoning clothes, 
touching a point with a finger, walking, or talking. It may be 
manifested in the mild form of occasional twitching or jerking 
of one hand, or in the severer form of jerking and twitching of 
muscles of one half or of all the body. In mild cases it may be 
detected by holding the child's hand between the palms, and 
noting the twitching, or by observing the movements of the 
tongue. 

It is preeminently a disease of childhood, for 34 per cent of 
the cases occur between five and ten years of age, and 45 per 
cent between the ages of ten and fifteen. It is most common 
in the thirteenth year for girls, who are about twice as hable to 
it as boys. The largest number of cases occur in the spring, and 
an attack usually lasts from four to ten weeks. It is frequently 
associated with rheumatism and heart disease; but its most 
frequent cause is excitement, especially fright. Bright children 
are more subject to it than dull ones. Worry, fright, and fatigue 
make it worse, and often bring on another attack after recovery. 

The best remedy for it is as complete rest as possible of mind 
and body, with nutritious and easily digested food. If possible, 
the child should be kept in bed day and night for some time, 
even though he is at first restless. In any case he should not 
be allowed to continue in school, unless the home conditions 
are extremely irritating and unfavorable. He is Hkely to be 
made worse by the effort to keep up with his class, and his pres- 
ence in school often Effects unfavorably nervous and choreatic 



340 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

children, especially the latter. There is no doubt that chorea 
may be produced in such children by force of suggestion. When 
there are children in the school liable to chorea, particular care 
should be taken to avoid excessive fatigue, excitement, fright, 
or worry, caused by reproofs or severe examinations. 

Stuttering is sometimes very properly classified as a form of 
chorea, for there is in reality a spasmodic contraction or twitch- 
ing of some of the muscles concerned in speech. Stammering 
is want of proper control of the muscles of speech so that words 
are not readily pronounced or the sounds given in the proper 
order because of inhibition of action in certain centers. If, 
however, a stammerer becomes embarrassed, this temporary 
condition of nervousness may lead to spasmodic activity of the 
centers and consequent stuttering which may become a habit, 
though there is no real chorea. 

There are three principal groups of muscles concerned in 
speech : (i) the muscles of breathing which control the flow of 
air, (2) the muscles of phonation that control the vocal cords, 
and (3) the muscles of articulation which are concerned in mold- 
ing the sounds in the mouth. Correct pronunciation requires 
not only that all of these muscles shall act perfectly, but that 
the different groups shall act harmoniously and in the right 
order. Stuttering and stammering are caused by lack of proper 
harmony as to amount, time, or order of contraction of the dif- 
ferent groups of muscles, while ordinary defects in pronunciation 
are usually due to an improper use of the muscles of articulation 
which mold the sounds in the mouth. Stuttering and stam- 
mering, therefore, call first for training in breathing, then in 
phonation, and then in these processes combined with articula- 
tion, rather than training in articulation alone. 

An habitual stutterer or stammerer should not continue in 
school, because the embarrassment of trying to recite is likely 
to increase the difficulty, and his presence in the school may 



CHILD STUDY APPLIED IN SCHOOLS 341 

develop, by imitation and suggestion, a similar defect in other 
children who have the slightest tendency in that direction. A 
speciahst, rather than an ordinary teacher, is needed to deal 
with such defects when they have become habitual. Incipient 
cases may, however, often be prevented from developing by the 
wise teacher, though perhaps not without individual work with 
the child when other pupils are not present. Some drill in 
breathing and phonation is often needed; but the principal 
thing is to free the child from the embarrassment of trying to say 
what he cannot, and to inspire him with confidence in his ability 
to speak. Sometimes concert drills in breathing, phonation, 
and articulation, alternating with the same exercise by designated 
individuals, will be of advantage to the whole school and at the 
same time completely cure the incipient stammerer or stutterer. 

SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES FOR OBSERVATION 

Countless outlines and directions for the study of children 
may be, and have been, made. Though many are so complete 
as to be cumbersome, none of them are exactly suited to indicate 
the special peculiarity of eoery child. Minute analysis of the 
characteristics of individuals is interesting to a certain extent, 
and has some value as training for the teacher, but she gains 
little from frequent attempts to analyze minutely the character- 
istics of all her pupils. Usually, she has only a few exceptional 
pupils who need much special study and treatment. Except 
in the case of a few pupils, who are all-round puzzles, the teacher 
generally needs to study only the causes and effects of one or two 
fundamental peculiarities as a means of knowing what to do for 
a child. The significance of any peculiarity depends not so much 
upon its prominence, as compared with that characteristic in 
other children, as upon its prominence as compared with other 
qualities possessed by the same individual. Even exact physical 
data, such as the lung capacity of a ten-year-old boy, have no 



342 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

significance until you know whether the boy is large or small 
for his age. The teacher, therefore, needs to compare the child's 
characteristics with the others that he possesses, to determine 
their harmony and unity, rather than simply to compare them 
with those of his companions. 

The outhnes given below are not intended to be in any way 
complete, but merely to be suggestive of what is likely to be 
most significant regarding a school, recitation, or individual. 

The following questions prepared for normal students about 
to enter the practice schools are good ones for any teacher to 
ask soon after taking charge of a new school. 

I. OUTLINE FOR THE STUDY OF A NEW SCHOOL 

1. Should there be any change in the light or ventilation of the room, or 
in the seats of the pupils? What portions of the blackboard are clearly 
visible from the different parts of the room? 

2. Is the school as a whole about the average for schools of this grade in 
age, size, abUity, and advancement ? 

3. Are there any pupils who are much behind or ahead in any of these 
respects, and if so, what explanation of such variations can you give ? 

4. Are there any pupils who show signs of poor health, nervousness, 
defects of eye and ear, and if so, what are the signs you have noticed? 
What can the teacher do for such pupils ? 

5. What do you notice in the habits and disposition of the school as a 
whole that is good, and what that needs improvement? What improve- 
ment do you expect to try to make? 

6. Answer the same question as in 5 for individual children who have 
habits and dispositions different from the rest of the school. 

7. What subjects are the pupils most interested in and what least? 

8. The same questions as in 7 for individual pupils differing from the rest. 

9. Make a special study of any child who seems to be a leader of a part or 
all the school, trying to determine how he leads his companions, and how 
he can best be led by the teacher. 

The following outlines are intended to be used by normal 
students who are preparing to teach, but more experienced 
teachers may find them of some value. 



CHILD STUDY APPLIED IN SCHOOLS 343 

II. SUGGESTIONS FOR OBSERVING INDIVIDUAL PUPILS 

In getting acquainted with children it will be of advantage to note facts 
and form judgments in regard to the following points so far as you have 
opportunity to do so. 

1. Physical Characteristics. 
Size of child for his age. 
Health. 

Evidence of, or freedom from, nervousness. 
Characteristics of attitudes and movements. 
Condition of eyes and ears. 

2. School Work. 

Work as compared with the average of his class. 
Success in different subjects. 
Chief merits or defects as a pupil. 

3. Life outside of School. 
Character of his home. 

Occupations outside of school in the way of studying, reading, working, 

or playing. 
Characteristics shown outside of school different from those in school. 

4. Mental Characteristics. 

Ability, quickness, and accuracy in perceiving, imaging, remembering, 
and reasoning. 

Emotional characteristics as manifested in fear, anger, jealousy, bash- 
fulness, pride, and interests. 

Effect of praise and blame. 

Character of attention, reflex or voluntary, continuous or intermittent, 
intense or slight. 

Actions, impulsive or deUberate. 

Persistency or lack of it in working. How best appealed to? What 
is needed most, stimulation, repression, or direction? 

Evidence of his tendency to lead or to follow and imitate. 

III. SUGGESTIONS FOR OBSERVING A RECITATION 

Is the lesson (a) a review and driU lesson, or (6) the presentation of new 
truths? 



344 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

If (a), is the chief aim to fix in memory or to gain speed and accuracy 
in what is already known? 

Does the teacher rely upon many repetitions for her results, or does she 
depend more upon intensity of interest ? 

To what extent does interest and success depend upon the rate of work- 
ing, devices used, and variety introduced into the drill? Are all the 
children kept busy all the time during the lesson? 

If (b), what is the aim of the lesson? 

1 . Subject Matter. 

What is given the children? What can you say as to the amount and 
arrangement of this subject matter and its connection with preceding 
lessons and those that are to follow? 

2. The Teaching. 

Is the subject matter presented by means of objects, representations of 
objects (pictures, diagrams, models, maps), or by means of words 
(printed or oral), or by a combination of two or more of these? 

Notice what means (questioning or other) the teacher uses to connect 
truths taught with each other, and to lead to general conclusions and 
their applications. 

3. The Class. 

Are the pupils attentive and interested ? 

What in subject matter or mode of representation is or is not suited to 
the age, knowledge, and ability of the children ? 

What mental powers are they using principally, perceptive, representa- 
tive, or thinking? 

What kinds of apperceptive knowledge are they recalling: (i) previous 
knowledge of the same or other subjects studied, or (2) knowledge 
gotten outside of school by hearsay, observation, and experience? To 
what extent do they relate the old knowledge to the new, with or 
without suggestion? 

Notice if correct general conclusions are reached, and if they are ap- 
plied to particular cases correctly. 

What habits of the class do you notice ? 

4. Individual Children. 

Report all significant individual peculiarities that you note during the 
recitation. 



CHILD STUDY APPLIED IN SCHOOLS 345 

A good way of promoting child study among teachers is to 
call for reports regarding all pupils having a certain character- 
istic in a marked degree ; as, quick temper, perseverance, poor 
sight, restlessness ; or regarding those who are good in reading 
or spelling or arithmetic, or those remarkable for size, quickness, 
or lack of energy. Let each teacher describe one or two of her 
pupils who have in a marked degree the characteristic selected, 
telling how they are in other respects, and what she finds to be 
the best mode of dealing with them. Such comparison and 
discussion of similar experiences will be very helpful and lead 
to further observations. 

REPORTS AND RECORDS 

There has unquestionably been much vexation of spirit and 
waste of time in making child-study reports, as well as in the re- 
ports required by the old-time marking system. Such reports, 
therefore, should be as brief and from the standpoint of the 
teacher as significant as possible. One like the following may 
be made two or three times a year with profit to all concerned. 

Name of pupil Grade Sex Date of Birth 

Particularly good or poor in what subjects, if any. 

Character of conduct. 

Remarks regarding characteristics important to recognize in dealing with 
the child (as sensitiveness, stubbornness, slowness, lack of persistence, spe- 
cial interests, special physical or home conditions, etc.). 

Evidence of a change for better or worse in work or conduct. 

Date Teacher 

Such reports as these are of temporary value, but are not of 
great significance for permanent preservation. Children are 
so variable in their conduct, and show forth such diiTerent char- 
acteristics to different persons, that such reports may be more 
misleading than enlightening to subsequent teachers. The best 
pupil under one teacher may be the worst under another, and 



346 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

the child least interesting to his teacher at the beginning of 
the year may be the most attractive at the close. 

The same actions may also be interpreted by one teacher as 
shyness and by another as stubbornness, or as sensitiveness by 
one and as lack of feeling by another. For these reasons it is 
often better for a teacher to get acquainted with her pupils 
before she reads the reports another teacher has made regarding 
them. 

With data obtained by tests, and from inquiry regarding the 
home life and past educational history of the child, the case is 
different. Such facts, if not more reliable, are at least more per- 
manently significant. The number of such facts that may he 
of value is almost infinite, but the number that it will be found 
practicable to obtain and keep on record is very limited in most 
schools, where so many other things demand the immediate 
attention of teachers and superintendent. The admission card 
should state at least these facts : date of birth, residence, nation- 
ality of parents, occupation of father, and school attendance 
and promotions. Some records of objective tests and measure- 
ments of physical growth, mental ability, and pedagogical at- 
tainments may be made and kept with profit. The most im- 
portant of these are tests of sight and hearing and of physical 
condition. If it is not practicable to have all the children 
tested, teachers should themselves closely observe all signs of 
defects in hearing and sight, and test pupils who show any signs 
whatever of such defects. 

Defects of hearing are to be found in every schoolroom. Any 
pupil who is habitually inattentive or apparently careless, or 
who watches a teacher's mouth very closely when speaking, or 
who looks to see what other pupils are doing before beginning 
to follow directions, should be observed, and, if necessary, 
tested, to discover whether his hearing is defective. The teacher 
should notice if it makes any difference whether she stands close 



CHILD STUDY APPLIED IN SCHOOLS 347 

in front of, behind, or on the right or left of the child when she 
speaks to him, and whether he shows that he hears when there 
is no possible chance for him to guess what is said. 

The detection of poor hearing is difficult for (i) the defect 
may be in one ear only ; (2) may be greater at some times than 
at others, especially when the child has a cold ; (3) if the atten- 
tion is first secured, hearing is often surprisingly improved ; (4) 
nearly all children with poor hearing have learned to make 
shrewd guesses at what is being said ; (5) few buildings are 
sufficiently quiet for accurate tests to be made. 

In all doubtful cases, at least, the teacher should test the 
children with the watch or other convenient means. Several 
persons should be tested with the watch to find out how far it 
can be heard by normal ears, for watches vary greatly in loudness. 
The child should look straight ahead and hold a card against 
his face so as to conceal from his view the movements of the one 
testing him. Often a child thinks he hears a watch when he 
does not, hence it may be necessary to occasionally cover it 
tightly with the hands in such a way as to muffie the sound, 
in order to determine positively whether or not the child hears. 
If the distance in a quiet room at which a child can hear a watch 
is less than three feet, his hearing is almost surely defective, 
and it may be if the distance is greater. 

When a child is known to have poor hearing nothing should 
be said about it, but he should be placed in as favorable a position 
as possible for hearing what the teacher and also his classmates 
say, and the teacher should take special pains to see that he does 
hear all directions that he is expected to follow. Children with 
defective hearing frequently form habits of inattention, and some- 
times, when they are aware of their deficiency, try to excuse 
themselves for failure to do things they have been told to do, 
on the ground that they did not understand. The teacher 
should take the greatest pains to make this excuse an impossible 



348 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

one, and to break up habits of inattention. Under no circum- 
stances should the teacher assume that the child heard, or could 
have heard if he had tried, and blame him for not so doing ; but 
she should have tested him thoroughly so that she knows, both 
from the conditions and from his expression of face or oral ac- 
knowledgment that he has heard, and then she should hold 
him responsible for remembering and doing what he is told. 
To manage a child with poor hearing without either doing him 
an injustice, or ''babying" and unwisely excusing him for non- 
performance or imperfect performance of tasks, often requires 
great tact and wisdom. 

Defects of the eye are more common, but somewhat less sub- 
ject to serious misunderstanding than those of the ear. Pupils 
who hold books in unusual positions, who wink or rub their 
eyes a good deal, who frequently fail to do perfectly work placed 
on the board, or whose eyes look red, weak, or tired, or who have 
frequent headaches, or who wrinkle the brows, or show other 
signs of nervousness, should be tested. 

One of the best cards for testing, and the only kind that can 
be successfully used with first-grade children, is one in which 
it is not necessary to name the letters, but merely to tell which 
way a series of E's of different sizes points. In order that there 
may be no misunderstanding, it will be well, with small children, 
to first test them close enough to the card to be sure that they 
know which way the letters point, and how to indicate the 
direction of the letters by pointing or by words. The child 
should then be placed with his back to a window, holding a stiff 
card over (not against) one eye, and asked to tell which way the 
letters, indicated with a pencil, point. The distance should be 
that for the smallest or next to the smallest letters on the card, 
and, of course, the largest letters should be pointed to first. In 
pointing it is well to hold the pencil vertically under the letter, 
that the letter may not be partly covered, or shadowed, by the 



CHILD STUDY APPLIED IN SCHOOLS 349 

pencil, and that there may be no doubt as to which one is meant. 
The record of the test is made by taking the distance at which 
the card is held as the numerator, and the number of the last 
line of letters read as the denominator of the fraction. Thus, 
if the distance is 5 metres, and the number of the line last read 
is 10, the record will be ^. This means that the child can read 
at 5 meters what a normal child can read at 10 meters. 

The above test will usually, though not always, be sufHcient 
to detect serious defects of vision, but in doubtful cases should 
be supplemented by tests for near vision and for astigmatism. 
As soon as a teacher is fully convinced that a pupil's eyes are 
seriously defective, she should advise the parents to have them 
examined by a specialist. In the meantime, she should place 
the child where he will have the best conditions possible for seeing. 

The following form of card prepared by Professor Bird T. Bald- 
win may be used both for records of physical measurements and 
as standards of comparison. The most significant figures on the 
card are the ratio of breathing power to weight. Children who 
rank low in this coeflB.cient for their age are usually either lacking 
in physical vigor or are backward in physical and mental develop- 
ment. On the other hand, those who rank high for their age 
are usually vigorous physically and more mature both physically 
and mentally than the average. All pupils showing great de- 
viations from the norm should receive careful study and, if 
necessary, special treatment. 

TESTS AND STANDARDS IN THE STUDY OF CHILDREN 

Psychologists and child-study specialists have been busy 
during the last few years devising and perfecting tests and es- 
tablishing standards that may be useful in studying children. 
Some of these are now available, but changes are being rapidly 
made and it will be a long while before the best tests can be 
selected, standardized, and substituted for the teacher's observa- 



3 so 



FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 



3 






These norms represent well-developed children with school-medical 
inspection and physical training. A small child for a given age may be 
well developed if the coefficients, height, weight, and breathing capacity re- 
lationships, are normal and approximate those indicated. The formula is 

Weight ~ height = weight-height coefficient. 

Breathing capacity -i- height = vital-height coefficient. 

For example. For 52 years, 41 lbs. -=- 43 in. = .95 weight-height 
coefficient. 

In the metric system use height in centimeters, weight in kilograms, 
and breathing capacity in liters. The English weight-height coefficient 
normsX -179= metric weight-height coefficient norms. The English vital- 
height coefficient norms X .00645= metric vital-height coefficient norms. 




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CPIILD STUDY APPLIED IN SCHOOLS 



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These norms represent well-developed children with school-medical 
inspection and physical training. A small child for a given age may be 
well developed if the coefficienls, height, weigUt, andbreathing capacity re- 
lationships, are normal and approximate those indicated. Theformulais 

Weight -h height = weight-height coefficient. 

Breathing capacity -=- height = vital-height coefficient. 

For example. For 52 years, 41 lbs. -h 43 in. = .95 = weight-height 
coefficient. 

In the metric system use height in centimeters, weight in kilograms, 
and breathing capacity in liters. The English weight-height coefficient 
norms X.I 79= metric weight-heightcoefficient norms. The English vital- 
height coefficient norms X .00645 =metric vital-height coefficient normSr 



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352 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

tion and individual judgment. Indeed, it is only in certain lines 
that tests may take the place of observation, and in many cases 
even in these lines the observations of the teacher made while 
the test is being taken, will furnish valuable supplementary data. 

Standard tests of physical growth and ability, such as measure- 
ment of height, grip, lung capacity, etc., vary only slightly with 
the personality of the one who makes them. More care is re- 
quired in securing the conditions necessary to accurate measure- 
ments and calling forth the best efforts of children in the strength 
tests. 

In testing for sense and motor defects still more care is needed 
in getting accurate results, since children are readily affected 
by suggestions of the observer and are much inclined to use 
other senses than the one being tested. They also guess or infer 
on the basis of the situation presented and truths already known. 
These factors are of considerable importance, especially in testing 
hearing by means of a watch or the voice. Slight movements 
of the observer or changes in his tone of voice are responded to 
rather than the sounds being used as tests. 

In the more distinctly mental tests not only must care similar 
to that exercised in testing for sense defects be exercised, but the 
mental status of a child may be determined as readily by an ex- 
perienced observer who watches how the child works as by the 
unskilled observer who merely records the objective results 
achieved by him. This appHes especially to tests of mental 
intelligence. In so far as success and speed are dependent upon 
the use of certain methods of working rather than upon the 
rapidity of movement and thought, as in the form board and 
other tests, they indicate whether the subjects have sufficient 
intelligence to proceed in an efficient way. The test gives the 
experienced observer a chance to note the significant thing, 
how the subject works ; but this is something not easily made a 
matter of accurate and understandable record. The best tests 



CHILD STUDY APPLIED IN SCHOOLS 353 

will be those that involve intelligent methods as a necessary- 
means to success, regardless of the time required, or that provide 
a definite means of recording the manner of working. To do 
this becomes more and more difficult as higher mental processes 
are tested. For example, it is hard to objectively determine 
the correctness and maturity of concepts as indicated by defini- 
tions, although an expert can readily see that a given definition 
indicates more or less maturity of mind. 

The most valuable tests of maturity of intelligence thus far 
are the Binet tests and modifications of those tests, and they 
have proved most useful in selecting feeble-minded and back- 
ward children. Progress is being rapidly made in rendering 
tests more independent of the observations, knowledge, and 
judgment of the observer and also in developing those measuring 
the higher powers of an individual and indicating his personal 
characteristics; yet observation and personal judgment must 
for many years, and perhaps always, retain a large measure of use- 
fulness. These judgments are greatly improved by being made 
in connection with familiar and definitely conditioned tests; 
hence the tests are valuable for observational purposes even 
when the objective results alone cannot be depended upon. 

It must be recognized also that scientific tests are suited to meas- 
uring quantity rather than quality ; hence in studying human 
beings personal observation and judgment must always be used 
in deahng with them. An experienced observer in any line 
may more quickly "size up" an individual and interpret a sit- 
uation than can a scientist by means of tests ; hence it will always 
be of advantage for teachers to be good observers of children, 
however perfect the means of testing them may become. 

Tests of children to determine special talent and vocational 
abihty are being developed and will probably prove to be of 
value, especially in some lines. They will always, however, be 
subject to important limitations. One is that success depends 



354 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

not simply upon special ability of one kind, but upon general 
ability and several varieties of special ability as well as upon 
energy and perseverance and upon social qualities. Different 
species of animals survive by different means, and in a similar 
way individual men succeed in the same occupation by different 
qualifications and methods. The probabilities of success or 
failure indicated by the tests of supposedly necessary powers 
may be more than counterbalanced by strength or weakness 
in other lines. Only a beginning has been made in this field, 
but the studies of Wooley indicate that general ability is more 
significant for vocational direction than special talent. 

One of the most promising uses of tests is in objective deter- 
mination of the results of teaching. The effects of the teaching 
upon the personality of the individual can probably never be 
measured in any completeness by objective tests, but the abiHty 
to make use of one's teaching in certain ways may be. The 
ordinary method of estimating these results by examinations 
and by the judgment of teachers is notoriously unreliable. By 
the help of psychologists, educators will in the future be able to 
use standard tests with considerable accuracy in determining 
the results of teaching. When these tests have been fully de- 
veloped, simplified, and standardized, it will probably not be more 
difficult for teachers to use them than it has been to use the old 
marking and examination system. The results of such tests 
have a definite meaning by whomsoever given, while under the 
present system, 95 per cent from one teacher may mean no more 
than does 75 per cent from another. The tests that are of most 
use so far, are in handwriting, arithmetic, spelling, and reading. 

Not only are standard tests useful, but norms or standards 
of achievement are necessary in interpreting the results of tests 
given to an individual or a school. These norms, however, 
should be regarded as means of facilitating comparisons and as 
aids in forming judgments, and rarely should they be set up as 



CHILD STUDY APPLIED IN SCHOOLS 355 

ideals or standards to which individuals must conform. Chil- 
dren should not be treated as regards their mental qualities as 
Procrustes treated his victims in their physical persons. We do 
not try to make an individual tall or short, and no more should 
we insist upon his reaching the average standard in handwriting, 
arithmetical calculation, etc., regardless of whether the efforts 
being put forth are bringing sufficient results to justify continuing 
that rather than some other form of training. 

If tests are sufficiently simpHfied, a teacher by using them may 
quickly discover a pupil's place in the educational field and can 
put him with pupils of like attainments for further training. 
At intervals he may be tested, and on the basis of his progress 
in various lines his further training may be decided. It is gen- 
erally best to have him approach the norms of other pupils if he 
can be brought to do so without expending too much time and 
energy, but the possibilities of useful development which he pos- 
sesses in the greatest degree should be sought, in order that he 
may be given opportunity to gain most by working in the line 
of his endowments rather than in the field of his greatest de- 
ficiencies. 

The tests and standards now being developed will be of im- 
measurable value not only in developing a science of education 
and as an aid to practical administrators, but to the individual 
teacher. They will give her much more exact data than can be 
obtained by mere observation, and they will afford her a good op- 
portunity for making valuable observations, yet scientific tests 
can never take the place of sympathetic observation of personal 
characteristics and of quick perception of the moods of pupils, 
in deciding how to deal with them at the moment. The success- 
ful teacher of the future will learn to use the tests prescribed by 
specialists as an aid to more accurate judgment of conditions 
and more intelligent plans for dealing with children, and not 
as substitutes for her own intelligence and tact. 



356 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHILD STUDY 

Suggestions for Reading 

The books of most general value on the subject of studying children in 
school are those of Warner, Rowe, Hastings, and Groszmann, and the 
reports of Christopher and Smedley to the Chicago Board of Education, 
while various educational journals and reports of child-study societies, 
especially of Illinois and Minnesota, contain numerous outlines and 
suggestions, and also some reports of school superintendents such as 
Spaulding of Passaic, N. J. 

On the school conditions, works on school hygiene, such as Kotelmann, 
Shaw, or Burrage and Bailey, should be consulted if necessary, and 
also the following articles : Mosher, " Habitual Postures of School 
Children," Ed. Rev., Vol. IV, pp. 339-349 ; McKenzie, N. E. A., 1898, 
pp. 939-948 ; Parnell, " Medical Inspection in School," N. E. A., 1898, 
pp. 454-462 ; Lemon, " Psychic Effect of the Weather," Am. Jr. Psych. , 
Vol. VI, pp. 277-279 ; Dexter, Fed. Sem., Vol. V, pp. 512-522, Ed. Rev.y 
Vol. XIX, pp. 160-168; or Monograph Suppl., Psych. Rev., Vol. II, 
No. 6. 

On children's movements, the studies of Curtis, Ped. Sem., Vol. VI, pp. 90- 
106, and Lindley, Am. Jr. Psych., Vol. VII, pp. 491-517 ; while various 
tests are described by Seashore, Ed. Rev., Vol. XXII, pp. 69-82, and 
Hancock, Ped. Sem., Vol. VIII, pp. 291-340. 

On the practical value of child study in school and the relations of teacher, 
pupils, and the home, see Luckey, Ch. S. Mo., Vol. I, pp. 230-247 ; Educ, 
Vol. IV, pp. 271-275; Ed. Rev., Vol. XIV, pp. 340-347; Van Liew, 
N. E. A., 1896, pp. 864-872 ; 1897, pp. 294-296; Galbreath, Jr. Ped., 
Vol. XI, pp. 237-252 ; Patrick, N. E. A., 1895,'pp. 906-914; Whitney, 
Educ, Vol. XV, pp. 466-473 ; Thayer, Educ, Vol. XIV, pp. 68-75, 
142-148; Kratz, Ped. Sem., Vol. Ill, pp. 413-418; Bell, Ped. Sem., 
Vol. VII, pp. 492-525 ; Baker, Educ, Vol. XIV, pp. 264-268 ; Skinner, 
Trans. III. Ch. S. Soc, Vol. II, No. 2, pp. 28-39 ; Russell, Ped. Sem., 
Vol. II, pp. 343-357. 

On child study in the kindergarten, see Payne, N. E. A., 1897, pp. 586-593 ; 
McKenzie, N. E. A., 1893, p. 637, ff. ; Nicholson, Ch. S. Mo.y 
Vol. II, pp. 675-684; Bailey, iV. E. A., 1899, pp. 541-546. 

On child study in secondary schools, see Atkinson, School Review, Vol. V, 
pp. 642-683, 461-466; Scudder, School Review, Vol. VII, pp. 197-214; 
Austin, N. W. Mo., Vol. VIII, pp. 487-490. 

On the graded system and individual instruction, see F. Burke, N. W. Mo., 



CHILD STUDY APPLIED IN SCHOOLS 



357 



Vol. VIII, pp. 481-484; C. Frear Burk, Ed. Rev., Vol. XIX, pp. 296- 
302 ; Powell, Ch. S. Mo., Vol. I, pp. 290-305 ; Search, Ed. Rev., Vol. 
VII, pp. 154-170; Barnard, N. E. A., 1899, pp. 163-170; Kennedy, 
N. E. A., 1901, pp. 295-300, and the N. E. A. discussion, 1898, pp. 
422-448. 
On secretiveness of children, read C. Frear Burk, Ch. S. Mo., Vol. V, p. 355, 
and for interesting individual studies, see Russell, Ed. Rev., Vol. VI, 
pp. 431-442 ; Stableton, Diary of a Western Schoolmaster, and Ch. S. 
Mo., Vol. IV, pp. 451-458. See also Triplett on " Faults of Children," 
Fed. Sent., Vol. X, pp. 200-238. 

Later References 
Books 



Ayers 


HolHngworth 




Sinclair 


Bancroft 


Holmes, W. H. 




Segun 


Blan 


Hoag and Terman 


Shields 


Brown 


KeUy 




Smith 


Buckingham 


Keyes 




Starch (i) 


Coover 


Kirkpatrick (2 


&3) 


Stern 


Cornell 


McManis 




Stone 


Courtis 


Mitchell 




Terman 


Drummond 


Morgan, B. 




Thorndike (9 & 10) 


Freeman (i & 2) 


Norsworthy 




Whipple 


Goddard 


Pyle 




Whitney 


Groszmann 


Rowe 




Wilson 


Gulick and Ayers 


Sandiford 




Winch 


Healy and Fernald 


Schmit 




Wooley 


Hardt and Town 


Scott, Colon 




Yerkes 


Hilyer 


Scripture 







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2B 



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375 



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special research, especially in the Pedagogical Seminary. 



INDEX 



Ability, mental, and maturity, 87 ff. 

Abnormal brain states, 336 ff. 

Abnormalities, 25 ff. 

Acquired characteristics, 20. 

Adaptive instincts, 68 ff. ; development of, 
160 ff. 

Adolescence, 3, 316. 

Esthetic instinct, 71, 185, 228 ff. 

Altruism, 150, 155 ff. 

Ambidexterity, 115. 

Amusement, 176 ff., 178 ff. 

Ancestors, 15. 

Approbation, 150, 153 ff. 

Arrest of development, 40. 

Atavism, 17. 

Attention, curiosity, interest, and, 193 ff. ; 
and control of images, 287 ff. 

Auditory expression, 240 ff. ; factors con- 
cerned, 240 ff. ; stages of learning oral 
language, 243 ff. ; table of sentences and 
words used by M., 252. 

Automatic movements, 47, 102 ff. 

Bach, 13. 

Baldwin, 34. 

Barnes, 198, 

Bentley, 278. 

Binet tests, 35, 88, 353. 

Bolton, 279. 

Book, Prof., 98. 

Bridgman, Laura, 41. 

Brightness and maturity, 88 ff. 

Bryan, 44, 280. 

Burnett, 221. 

Calkins, 291. 

Cannon, Dr., 14. 

Cells, 18, 32, 40. 

Child study, origin of, 2 ; period covered by, 

2 ff. ; problem of, 8 ff., 63; applied in 

school, 327 ff. 
Chorea, 338. 
Chums, 151, 217. 



Coeducation, 143. 

CoeflBcient, of growth, 34 ff. ; of vitality, 34 ff. 

Collecting instinct, 223 ff. 

Commonality, and individuality, 314 ff . ; 
factors producing, 314 ff. ; how developed, 
320 ff. 

Competition, 150, 154 ff., 184. 

Concepts, development of, 294 ff. 

Conceptual intelligence, 275 ff. 

Consciousness, 123, 206; and instinct, 55; 
of infants, 107 ff. 

Constructive instinct, 227 ff. 

Contrary suggestion, 165. 

Coordination, 105. 

Curiosity, 69 ff., 184; development of, 
192 ff. ; function of, 192 ff. ; attention, 
interest and, 193 ff. ; and changes with 
age, 196 ff. ; and education, 199 ff. 

Curtis, 278. 

Darwin, 141. 

Davis, 323. 

De Busk, 35. 

Defective classes, 26. 

Defects, of hearing, 346 ; of eye, 348. 

Determiners, 21 ff. 

Development, 8, 70, 97; inner and outer 
factors in, 7 ff. ; generality of forces of, 
10; shock and, 14; growth and, 39 ff. ; 
natural order of, 41 ff. ; of instincts, 63 ff. ; 
nurture and, 73 ff.; early, of infants, 
102 ff. ; of voluntary control, 108 ff. ; 
of individualistic instinct, 123 ff . ; in- 
dividualism, the basis of higher, 128 ff.; 
of racial instinct, 139 ff. ; of social, 150 ff. ; 
of adaptive instincts, 160 ff. ; of imita- 
tion, 163 ff. ; of play, 175 ff. ; of curiosity, 
192 ff. ; of regulative instincts, 204 ff. ; 
of expressive instinct, 239 ff. ; of intellect, 
272 ff.; of resultant instincts, 223 ff. 

Difference, between children and adults, i 
ff. ; in individuals of same species, 65 ff. 

Discrimination, development of, 277 ff. 



377 



378 



INDEX 



Dominance, 22, 
Dramatic imitation, 162, 
Drawing, 262. 
Ductless glands, 33. 



[66flf. 



Edison, 289. 

Efficiency, 83 ff. 

Embryo, 18, 33. 

Emotions, 118 ff. 

Endowment, native, 13 fif., 47 ff-; modi- 
fication of native, 73 ff., 192 ff. 

Environment, 4 ff., 7 ff-, i4, 28, 65, 73, 74. 

Eugenics, 23 ff. 

Evolution and child study, 2 ; and infancy, 6. 

Exercise, 36, 40, 41 ff. 

Expressive instinct, development of, 239; 
origin, nature and forms of, 239; audi- 
tory expression, 240 ff.; visual language, 
253 ff.; drawing, 262 ff. 

Fatigue, in learning, 96; observation of, 

335. 
Fear, 61, 130 ff., 165. 
Feeble-minded, 276. 
Feeble-mindedness, 25 ff. 
Feeding instinct, 66, 67, 73 ff., 128. 
Feelings, relations of instincts to, 233 ff. ; 

relations of fundamental stimuli to, 236 ff. 
Fetichism, 140. 
Fighting instinct, 135, 184. 
Froebel, 167. 

Galton, 24. 

Games, 178, 179, 183, 213. 

Garner, 240. 

Germ cells, 17 ff. 

Gilbert, 277, 278. 

Gregariousness, 150 ff. 

Groos, 175. 

Growth, general phenomena of, 32 ff.; of 
children, 33 ff. ; factors, 35 ff- ; of parts, 
37 ff. ; health and, 38 ff. ; and develop- 
ment, 39 ff. ; and exercise, 41 ff. ; tables 
of, 350 ff. 

Habits, 90 ff., 274, 282, 288, 293, 330 ff.; 

regular, 205 ff. ; in language, learning, 

247 ff. 
Hale, Horatio, 240. 
HaU, G. S., 140, 296. 
Hall, Supt., 116. 
Hallucinations, 285 ff. 
Hancock, 44, 278. 
Hastings, 318. 



Health and growth, 38 ff. 

Hearing, defects of, 346 ff. 

Heredity, 10; nature of, 13 ff. ; laws of, 

15 ff.; theory of, 17 ff.; social, 27 ff.; 

and growth, 35. 
Hertel, 38. 
Humor, 234 ff. 

Ideals, 210, 214, 216. 

Image, development of power to, 284 ff. 

Imaginary companions, 168, 285. 

Imagination, 182, 183, 188; growth of con- 
structive, 287 ff. ; development of creative, 
289 ff. 

Imitation, 9, 232, 242 ; characteristics of in 
children, 160 ff. ; classification, 161 ff. ; 
reflex, 161, 163 ff. ; spontaneous, 161 ff., 
164; dramatic, 162, 166 ff. ; volvmtary, 
162 ff., 168 ff. ; idealistic, 163, 170 ff.; 
development, 163 ff. 

In-breeding, 16. 

Individualistic instincts, 67 ff. ; develop- 
ment of, 123 ff. ; strength of, 123 ff. ; 
prominence in the young, 124 ff.; and 
motives, 126 ff. 

IndividuaUsm, the basis of higher develop- 
ment, 128 ff. 

Individuality, 310 ff. ; significance, 310 ff. ; 
biological value of, 311 ff. ; commonality 
and, 312 ff. ; factors producing, 314 ff. ; 
time of greatest, 315 ff. ; necessity of 
recognizing, 319 ff. ; how developed, 
321 ff. ; types of, 321 ff. 

Infancy, period of, 3 ; significance of, 3 ff. ; 
advantages of long, 4 ff. ; and plasticity, 

5ff. 
Instincts, s, 7, 19, 47 ff., 50 ff. ;, and struc- 
ture, 53 ff. ; and consciousness, 55; 
usefulness of, 59 ff. ; fixed and indefinite, 
61 ; transient and periodic, 62 ; order of 
development of, 63 ff. ; classification of, 
66 ff. ; individualistic, 66 ff. ; racial, 67 ff. ; 
social, 68 ff . ; adaptive, 68 ff. ; regulative, 
70 ff. ; and learning, 74 ff. ; relation to 
mental activities, 118 ff. ; development 
of individualistic, 123 ff. ; development 
of racial, 139 ff. ; development of social, 
150 ff. ; development of adaptive, 160 ff. ; 
imitation, 160 ff. ; of play, 175 ff. ; of 
regulative, 204 ff. ; religious, 218 ff, ; 
various resultant, 223 ff. ; relation to 
feelings, 233 ff. ; development of expres- 
sive, 239 ff. 



INDEX 



379 



Intellect, development of, 272 ff. 

Intelligence, 4, 19, 57, 58; perceptual, 
273 S.; representative, 274 ff. ; con- 
ceptual, 275 ff. 

Interest, curiosity and, 193 ff. 

Jacobs, 279. 
James, Prof., 233. 
Jastrow, 279. 
Jealousy, 234. 
Jennings, 56. 
Jukes, 28. 

Kallikak, 25, 
Kohler, 198. 

Lancaster, 141, 145. 

Language, forms of, 239 ff. ; auditory, 240 ff. ; 

stages of learning, 243 ff. ; visual, 253 ff . 
Learning, instincts and, 74 ff. ; modes of, 

77 ff. ; physiology of. Si ff. ; psychology 

of, 83 ff . ; maturity, ability and, 87 ff . ; 

fatigue in, 96 ff. ; to walk, 115 ff. ; oral 

language, stages of, 243 ff. 
Left handedness, 114 ff. 
Leoroyd, 291. 
Lindley, 198. 
Loeb, 49, 56. 
Loyalty, 150, 155 ff. 

Maternal impressions, 14. 

Maturity, 34, 87 ff., 273, 276. 

Memory, 188; development of, 291 ff. 

Mendel, 20, 21. 

Mendelism, 20. 

Mental states, of infant, 106 ff. ; relation 
to instincts, 118 ff. ; development of 
mental, 278 ff. ; discipline, 96 ff. ; grasp, 
279 ff., 288 ff. 

Method of understanding, 79 ff. 

Meuman, 292. 

Migratory instinct, 232. 

Modesty, 128. 

Moore, Mrs., 248. 

Moral development, preparatory stage of, 
204 ff. ; training during the preparatory 
stage of, 20s ff. ; transition stage of, 213 ff. 

Motives, development of individuaUstic 
instinct into, 126 ff. ; appeal to the high- 
est, 208 ff. ; rank of, 209 ff. 

Movement, kinds of, 47 ff. ; automatic, 
102; reflex, 102; instinctive, 103 ff. ; 
increase in connections of, 104 ff. ; de- 
velopment of voluntary control of, 108 ff. 



Native endowments, less general, 13 ff. ; 

of special instincts, 47 ff. ; modifications 

of, 73 ff. 
Native reactions, 49 ff. 
Natural selection, 19, 312. 
Necessity, as a factor in education, 185 ff. ; 

in language learning, 242 ff. 
Nervous, 335 ff. 
Nervousness, 338 ff. 
Norms, 354. 
Nurture and development, 73 ff. 

Obedience, 211 ff. 

Optic nerve, 8. 

Oral language, stage of learning, 243 ff. 

Outlines for observation, 341 ff. 

Paidology, 2. 

Partridge, 278. 

Parts, proportion of, i. 

Perception, development of, 280 ff. 

Perceptual intelligence, 273 ff. 

PhiUips, 286. 

Physiological norms, 53. 

Plasticity, 3, 5 ff. 

Plateaus in learning, 92 ff. 

Plato, 199. 

Play, 69, 175 ff. ; theory of, 175 ff. ; work, 
amusement and, 176 ff. ; changes with 
age in freedom of, 179 ff. ; changes with 
age in powers used, 181 ff. ; as regards 
instincts, 183 ff. ; as a factor in education, 
185 ff. 

Porter, 318. 

Procrustes, 355. 

Pronunciation, 246 ff,- 

Puberty, 33, 139, 141, 146, 153, 182, 184, 286, 

Pubescence, 213. 

Public sentiment, 154, 217. 

Racial instincts, 67 ff. ; development of, 
139 ff. ; relation to other instincts and 
feeUngs, 141 ff. ; right development of, 
142 ff. 

Reactions, 49 ; two views of native, 49 ff , 

Read, methods of learning to, 256 ff. 

Reasoning, development of, 296 ff. 

Recessiveness, 22. 

Records and reports, 343 ff. 

Reflex, 48; imitation, 161. 

Regulative instinct, 71 ff- ; development of, 
204 ff. 

Religion, 142. 



38o 



INDEX 



Religious, instincts, 218 ff.; training in 

childhood, 218 ff.; awakening, 220 ff. 
Reports and records, 343 ff. 
Representative intelligence, 274 ff. 
Resultant instincts, 223 ff. 
Reversion, 17. 
Rhythmic instinct, 233 ff. 
Right handedness, 114 ff. - 
Rivalry, 154. 

Sex hygiene, 147 ff. 

Shaw, Prof., 198. 

Situation response theory, 51 ff. 

Smedley, 279. 

Social, 143, 243. 

Social instinct, 68 ff. ; development of, 

150 ff. ; forms of, 150 ff. 
Spaulding, 87. 
Special reactions, 49 ff. 
Spell, learning to, 261 ff. 
Spencer, 175. 

Standards in the study of children, 349 ff. 
Stuttering, 340 ff. 
St. Vitus dance, 338 ff. 
Suggestion, 332. 
Sympathy, 129, 150, 151 ff. 



Tennyson, 233. 

Tests, in study of children, 349 ff. 

Thorndike, 49. 

Training, general and special, 93 ff. ; moral, 

205 ff. ; religious, 218 ff. 
Trial and success, method of, 78. 
Twins, 74. 

Unit character, 21. 

Visual language, 253 ff. ; methods of learn- 
ing to read, 256 ff. ; learning to write, 
259 ff. ; learning to spell, 261 ff. 

Vocabularies, 253. 

Voluntary control, 108 ff. ; imitations, 162 ff., 
168 ff. 

Vostrovsky, 198. 

Walk, learning to, 115 ff. 
Warner, 337. 
Weismann, 19, 27. 
Wolfe, 286. 
Wooley, 354. 
Work, 176. 

Write, learning to, 259 ff. 
Writing, 44, 250 ff- 



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